This Time No—Forgiveness
by Atlin Merrick
Summary: It was Sherlock's fault. It usually is. And though he'll ask forgiveness for what he's done, for the very first time John will say, 'This time no, Sherlock. This time, never.' And maybe, just maybe, John Watson is going to mean it.
1. Chapter 1

**This Time No (Forgiveness)**

John will not forgive Sherlock. Not this time, no.

Ask just about anyone and they'll tell you John's usually _all _aboutforgiveness. Sometimes he's a damn saint. He's amazing. He deserves a medal. Hell yes.

Because living with Sherlock often sucks. And yeah, not in the good way. They've been together twelve years, married ten and, if asked about John's sainthood just about everyone can give you details should details you require.

Like so:

* Sherlock can be so distracted by a case the flat becomes a disaster zone of foul fluids, human remains, live bugs, sharp objects, and elaborate tableaux of same spread over every surface so that the super genius can 'just think for a minute.' That none of this crap ever gets thrown away, cleaned up, or released back into nature—not by Sherlock, anyway—goes without saying.

* Sherlock can fashion experiments so utterly ridiculous, so unbecomingly large, and so inclined to burn that there have been dozens of nights where they've had to flee the flat and spend the evening with friends until the fumes dissipated and the cleaners came.

* Sherlock can appear to be doing absolutely nothing but staring at the ceiling but be so deeply preoccupied with a random thought firing bright through that thick, pretty head that he doesn't hear John speaking to him from two feet away and even when he does he's as likely to complain at the interruption as he is to utter a kindness.

* Sherlock can head toward the kitchen to make John a cup of tea and instead that same thick head will spark with an idea that steers him out the door for the next three hours with little more than a quick goodbye.

* Instead of keeping his mouth shut tight about a grievance Sherlock will air it, as if his annoyance over queuing, being denied an audience, or having to repeat himself were grave injustices suffered by him alone.

* Sherlock is loud when he should be silent. Silent when he should be loud. He is willful, opinionated, devious, profane, selfish, vain, insecure, and entirely too tall.

Sherlock's all of those things and more and so yes, give the doctor a prize, a pat on the back, give him that fucking medal.

But guess what?

John doesn't want your accolades. And you can keep your damn medal, he's got three real ones tucked away in a drawer, thanks-so-much-anyway.

Because, until today, John would have replied to everything we've said about Sherlock with a "Sure, true and correct, so the fuck what?"

Yes, Sherlock can be self-centered prat, but so can we all. Every last one of us has whined about nothing much, become distracted by work, or taken ourselves far too seriously.

Yet most of us don't have genius as counter-point. Most of us can't literally point to a man, a woman, a painting, gem, house, _whatever,_ and say with truth, "I saved them. My brilliance made sure they go on, that they live, or still stand, or hang on that wall. Because I saw and understood something no one else saw or could understand this world is a noticeably better, brighter place."

Yeah, most of us have the same negatives but that bright and blazing positive, that gift? We wish.

So when you tell John he's a saint for putting up with Sherlock he will do what he always does, he will _say something._ Because such remarks against the man with whom he's joined his life don't get to go _un_remarked. You're an idiot if you think he'll let you insult someone so clearly your superior without taking you to task for it.

Politely, of course. John is nothing if not an almost flawless diplomat. One inclined to swearing—a tendency that's only getting worse as he reaches for and surpasses his first half century—one with scars, frequent frowns, as frequent smiles, and a hatred of chip-and-pin machines (still), but a consummate diplomat none-the-less.

So, with all of that, have we made our point that Sherlock's a handful at times but John has always understood that that's the price of genius, that with the bad comes the achingly good?

Did we even get to that part yet? The part John doesn't share unless directly asked, but if asked he _will_ tell you that Sherlock knows twenty eight languages in which to say I love you, and that he learned every one of them one long winter so that he could say those words to John—who was dealing with a bout of depression—'every time it rains or snows this year, my love'?

Did we talk about the way Sherlock holds John at night, even now, even after twelve long years, a long arm wrapped round John's waist, or fingers twined through his, or a hand pressed to his hip and his forehead tucked against John's chest as they drift to sleep?

Did we mention the odd, strange, perfect gifts he sometimes gives for no good reason? A stolen street sign that said Watsons Mews, a tiny skull pin, a 100-year-old stethoscope, a signed Doctor Who script, every single one having just appeared next to John's laptop one day (heck, once or twice there's been an entirely new laptop there, too).

Did we talk about that stuff yet? Or the tears Sherlock's cried when they thought John had cancer, when John's been hurt, when John's been nothing more than sad or indifferent or simply weary?

Yes, we did talk about all of that, just a little, so now you've got the balance of the man, enough maybe, to understand that you don't understand anything at all about who John and Sherlock are together, and so your opinion doesn't matter, but okay, fine, you'll have one, we all do, but the only heart that matters right now, today, is John's and John's heart, it's about to turn hard, bitter, and he will grow so angry he is silent, dead silent—a dangerous thing gone stealth.

And though Sherlock will ask forgiveness for what he's done John will say, "This time no, Sherlock. This time, never."

And John will walk out the door.

John Watson will leave.

...

I'm a drama queen. Most skulls are. But I won't drag this out or make you wonder, because no one needs to wade through thousands of words with a knot in their stomach, so I'll tell you three times: John comes back. John comes back. John comes back.

But by the time John comes back things have changed. _Sherlock _has changed. A whole lot of people later said it was for the better.

John? Even all these years later he's not so sure that's true.

Who am I? You know me. We've met a few times. I'm dead. My name's Aurora, Rory for short or Darlin' if you're John, and because John's rubbed off on Sherlock, he's even given me a diminutive, so I'm My Dear, too.

Anyway, that's not even the point—which helps me make a point actually—I have a bad habit of wandering off topic so if I do please be patient, I always wander back.

So yes, I'm a skull on a mantle, have been with Sherlock since he found me at my own crime scene nearly twenty years back, and I talk to the boys and they listen and then they talk and I generally talk over them. I was a therapist when I was alive, so usually I'm interrupting to good effect except the times when I'm so wrong it's embarrassing. Also, I'm American but usually no one holds that against me.

Fine, up to speed now? Remember? Those times we talked? Good.

Because I need to talk to you again, of course I do, because when things go crazy at 221B my boys don't tiptoe into it, they don't nibble at it, they run face first into a buffet of crazy and gorge until they're sick and god they're bilious with the stuff right now.

It's Sherlock's fault, it usually is except that time when it was John's fault because that thing that happened with him and that bloke at New Year but that's another story entirely and it was okay in the long run but for awhile you could have chilled a martini with the icy tones in this flat and I'll have you know that ice was coming from _John_ of all people and anyway, they got past it and now we're here.

And here is precisely here and it is precisely this: Sherlock probably went and had a living breathing baby with an almost-stranger. And he's about to tell John about it.

Nothing good is going to come of this.

Not for awhile.

I'm sorry.

_John comes back. In my universe the boys celebrate many, many more anniversaries together. But In this story both of them make huge, real-people mistakes, and it's wall-to-wall angst, including self-harm in later chapters. If that's not the John or Sherlock you want, I'm publishing silly stuff between chapters of this. If you stay and read, please let me know what you think._

_P.S. I used to publish to FFnet, then they deleted some of my stuff without telling me, but damn it I missed it here. So I'm going to publish to FFnet again and this time I'll avoid using swear words in the titles. *Fingers crossed*_


	2. Chapter 2

Momentous days rarely start that way.

This one had all the earmarks of nothing much and in retrospect that angers John. He'd have liked some warning, you know? A hint that hell was coming, that his rage was ready to ride, that he was about to get a punch in the gut and feel both fury and fear in equal measures.

He would have liked some warning early in that day—as soon as he opened his eyes would have been good—just a little heads up that he was going to want to hurt Sherlock, want to physically lay hands on him and bring him grief, pain, and tears.

Instead the day started with lazy sex. As they've gone from flatmates, to newlyweds, to married ones, John's fires have more or less stayed constant, and Sherlock's, they've been and continue to be as erratic as he is.

Some days, some weeks, some _months,_ his interest is sharpest only when John is interested. Some days, some weeks, some months he's up for it often, waking John with sex, putting them both to sleep with sex, or simply indulging in John's body, kissing, licking, sucking.

The day it happened was one of those lazy, indulgent days where Sherlock woke first, warm, hard, and interested in remaining one but not the other.

John was still asleep, but that didn't matter. _John_ had told him that that didn't matter.

"You want sex, love? Wake me. Ask me. Do me." He'd giggled then, pulled Sherlock close, and murmured just before sleep and right after they'd made love, "yeah, do me. Even if I'm sleeping. I'll have good dreams I bet."

That had been nearly ten years ago and Sherlock had taken him at his word. Oh, not often, because the whole point of having sex with John was to have sex_ with _John.

But once in awhile…well once in a great while a little intercrural lovemaking felt wonderfully salacious and so Sherlock would curl against John's back, slide a slicked-up cock between his husband's thighs, and get off.

Which is exactly what he did the morning it all went to hell in a handbasket.

Without even opening his eyes he pressed close to John's back, kissed the bumps along John's spine—the good doctor was on another weight loss kick and this time he'd kept ten pounds off, every one of which Sherlock missed—yet the good doctor answered his husband's gentle foreplay with a deep sigh and slept on.

Sherlock is rarely silent, but he does know how to be. So John never woke through the whole lube process—the fetching, the slicking up—and he didn't wake when Sherlock carefully slid his cock between John's thighs.

Over the years John's sort of trained Sherlock to come quickly. Yes, Sherlock had to be _taught_ to get on, got off, and get going. Because some days you don't want to make love, or have sex, or shag. You want to damn well _fuck_ and then hit the ground running.

So John taught Sherlock that not every sex act had to be about how long he could drag out the pleasure, sometimes the pleasure was in seeing how much pleasure you could steal from the middle of a busy day, or before exhaustion claimed you, or in a damn cupboard (that's happened twice, just twice) (actually more than that but John's not willing to admit to more than that because…he's just not).

So Sherlock knows how to get off and get on with it, but it's almost never his first choice, and it wasn't now.

Remember, he was warm and he was hard and he wanted to be only one of those things. And so he pumped his hips slowly and stayed quiet because he knew how, and he wondered abstractly if John was dreaming now, if those dreams were good, and then the consulting detective let his big brain tiptoe over the pending day, over the cases they had—trifles—and the corpse he was going to look over at the morgue and yeah, he got far afield for awhile and by the time he focused again John's back had a pretty curve in it and he'd reached around, was gripping Sherlock's hip.

"Mmmm," he said quietly, squeezing his thighs together tight. Sherlock kissed again at the back of John's neck, up into his hair, breathed deep the sweet smell of him, was about to whisper an endearment when John's body relaxed again as he drifted into a dozy sleep.

Sherlock wanted to kiss him awake again but didn't, wanted to slide a hand over John's belly, then down between his legs, but he didn't, letting John sleep because that's what John needed, but yeah, John had woke enough to encourage Sherlock because that's what Sherlock needed…

And it would be later that they would both regret that that's how that morning played out, their bodies pressed close but their minds nowhere near one another. Yet at the time it was warm, it was lazy, and they thought it was good.

…

They had five open cases, and yes they were trifles, but they paid well, for at this point the consulting detective business was good. John made sure of that.

Because you can only go so long on beans and toast—even if you love beans on toast. After awhile you want to know just how much, when, and from who, and so you accept referrals, start charging so much for _this_ and that much for _that—_then doubling the fee next time when no one balks—and you consistently do two things: dazzle and deliver.

So yes, they were busy, doing well, and neither had used the b-word for years. And then the fucking neighbor knocked on the fucking door.

Even years later John would never be sure if he wished the baby sitter had shown up on time that morning or not. He's run the scenario in his head both ways a hundred times. In one, the neighbor's baby sitter showed up, he never brought his baby to 221B, and life went on as always. In the other the sitter was late and John found out what he never wanted to know but had every fucking right to know, to have a say in, to _stop._

What did John wish had happened? He still doesn't know. He only knows he lives with what _did_ happen.

And what happened was sweetness personified.

At the time, and on later reflection, John knew Sherlock did it for him. Knew that he picked up the neighbor's baby girl, held her close, and crooned softly in her tiny-shell ear because the sight warmed John, kind of turned him on, made him smile.

Well, not _just_ for him, no. Because some part of the great detective was detecting, because there is no feasible way to turn off that brain of his. He can no more _not _see a suddenly-quickened pulse in a baby's neck, than you can not hear a shout.

So Sherlock saw that small child's ramped up heart beat, the faint glaze in her eyes, and the red rims of her ears, and deduced quite rightly that because her daddy was gone—dashing off and late to work—little Maryam was going to start wailing.

And so Sherlock caught John's eye and crooned softly in the infant's ear, he danced her across the floor and round and round his chair. Then, suddenly inspired, he waltzed to the fireplace, snatched me from the mantle, and held me out to the little girl.

The infant child was instantly diverted. She smacked my frontal bone, poked fingers into my eye sockets, then leaned forward to gum at a zygomatic arch.

John was transfixed of course. "Oh that's a child after your own heart." John nibbled on his lips and watched Sherlock whisper soft in the little girl's ear. "Then again, I don't think falling in love with skulls is a trait carried in a person's genes."

Sherlock danced me around in the air, to the little girl's delight. "We could find out."

For a few seconds nothing happened and then, very unwisely, Sherlock snapped his mouth shut. And then with elaborate care Sherlock turned his back, placed me carefully on the mantle.

"Sherlock?"

_Shutting his mouth. Turning his back._ If the tall idiot had done just one of those things, just one or the other, or better yet neither, John would have said nothing much, John would have _thought _nothing much.

"What do you mean?"

But Sherlock did one, then the other, and John saw both. And why did he already know he was a few moments from learning something he didn't want to know?

To be fair, John was fully complicit in what happened next. He could have let it go. Everyone has that choice—to let things go, to move on. So few of us make that choice. Even when we suspect—know—that the knowledge we seek will hurt, even then we ask, we probe, we say—

"Tell me what you mean."

For years Sherlock had a very particular habit. It was called lying. He would do it all day every day if it got him what he needed from a suspect, a victim, a police officer. He would dissemble, he would fib, he would skew, enhance, tilt, colour…he would lie.

And then there was John. From the start Sherlock had not wanted to lie to this man. Before he ever craved John's love he craved his trust.

That was twelve years ago. Since then Sherlock's long since forgotten some of the finer points of being a liar.

"I made a donation once."

So help him John knew exactly what Sherlock did _not_ mean. He did not mean blood. Money. Time.

There are so few things about Sherlock that are normal that John absolutely knew without words that Sherlock meant he'd made a donation of the thing that was, quite literally, most _him. _His genes. DNA. Sperm. It took John not quite four seconds to have these thoughts, and another two to conclude that what was past was past. It was okay. He'd probably done it for an experiment for heaven's sake, even as a young man he—

"Last year, when Lucy was—"

_"Last year?"_

John grunted, bent over suddenly. It was a sturdy stance, the posture of someone who has taken a blow.

Sherlock, on the other hand stood taller, an antenna searching for signal.

"You did this _last year?"_

Last year. Not twelve years ago, not twenty. Not in Life Before John. _Last year._

_Disbelief._

You didn't need to be a deductive genius to hear it. Even the infant heard, staring at the good doctor, her toothless mouth as guileless and open as the man holding her.

"I don't understand."

Sherlock watched John's mouth, as if it would explain how he'd gotten here and how he could _get away from here now._

"All those conversations we had in the night? You were there for them, right?"

Sherlock's legs felt cold and heavy. They wouldn't move.

"All those silly games and jokes about our little girls, Vex and Dis and…. I mean you _knew_ I wanted kids once? Just like every other normal human being?"

_Hurt._

Sherlock's arms wouldn't move.

"We could have adopted, you know. But it didn't seem…it wasn't what we were supposed to do. We agreed on that, right? You were there when we agreed on that?"

For a man who could not move, Sherlock was shaking awfully well.

"And this? You didn't give a fuck what this would mean to me."

Sherlock's chest hurt.

"It didn't even occur to you to care." John's voice was flat, like his gaze.

Sherlock grunted at the tightness in his chest. For one second he thought about asking John what a heart attack felt like but give that man a cigar even Sherlock realized he'd sound like a fucking drama queen. So instead Sherlock said, "John."

John looked at Sherlock's mouth as if he could see that one word. "Oh great, here we go again."

_Rage._

John sneered. It was happening again. It has happened a dozen times in the last dozen years, Sherlock's convenient inability to speak when John needs him to speak most.

"No, don't. Don't even try," John said, shaking his head. "Because I don't care. Whatever you eventually figure out to say—and you will, I have faith in your unrelenting brilliance Sherlock, your stupid, stupid brilliance—just no. Nothing will make this right you fucking idiot. Nothing."

This isn't John. Not the John Sherlock met at St. Bart's twelve years ago, not the John that married Sherlock ten years ago, not the John from yesterday. This mean-mouthed John is brand-spanking new, fresh out of the box, and _all his parts work a treat._

"What tea do I like right now Sherlock?" John paused just long enough to listen to silence.

"What year did we get married? What did we give Angelo for his birthday last week? What did we give Greg for _his_ birthday last month? When I broke my foot last year who took me to the hospital and why wasn't it you?"

Sherlock wanted to clutch his chest, so help him. He wanted to _touch_ the pain because it felt so much like there was a hand there, fisted around his heart so tight it robbed him of words, of _reason,_ and so he fell back on the one thing he could do, the one thing that has almost always been enough.

"John, _John."_

The good doctor stepped close, lifted a hand to press against Sherlock's mouth but instead held that hand in the air, fingers spread, a symbolic wall between them. "Stop it. Stop saying my name you idiot, you fool, it's not a magic incantation, it's not refutation, it's not an apology. It's nothing. It's _nothing,_ Sherlock. Just like me. Just like me to you. I'm nothing. In all the ways that matter to _normal_ people. In all the ways that _matter."_

John dropped his hand, his shoulders, his chin to chest, a small man grown suddenly so much smaller. "It was the one thing that mattered. You knew that, Sherlock. You knew."

_Grief._

It comes when it will, and it was coming now for Sherlock. Because he knew this was the day John would leave. He was as certain of it as he was of blinking, of breathing, of dying.

Yet grief had already found John, grief had a strangle-hold on his throat so tight it physically hurt to speak but speak he did.

"I tried not to talk about it too much. I've always known that by the time the time was right I was just too old to be a good father and you were just too scared and so we made up imaginary children because one of us sort of needed it and one of us thought it was funny but I tried Sherlock, I tried so hard not to make you feel bad about the fact that yeah, like most people I always thought I'd have kids but it turns out I didn't and I was okay with that. Why? _Why?_ Because I was okay with _you._ With the world containing just you, your magic, your grace, your gifts. I didn't used to think I was a jealous man but fuck me twice I am red with rage and green with envy and doubled over with the pain of it, the idea that there is a child in this world with your beauty and your brains and your…that there's you out there somewhere and I will never see that child, that I will never know them, that their grace and their magic and gifts will never be part of my life and that despite what the future brings _you will carry on_ and…and I will never know that child."

John sat down and fisted a hand to his chest. No one would ever accuse John of being a drama queen and so for many long seconds Sherlock literally stood on tiptoe, mouth open, brain drowning in the terrible words _heart attack heart attack heart attack_ but no, John was good, John was standing just as quickly as he'd sat down and he looked into Sherlock's eyes, his own eyes soft, and he said very carefully, as if the words contained more than the sum of their parts, "I can't listen to myself talk any more."

Then John just turned, walked away and just when the door closed behind him, _exactly then and precisely then and only fucking then_ did Sherlock find words.

"I didn't know John. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't."

But Sherlock was lying for the first time in years.

Because Sherlock knew. Sherlock damn well knew.

And he'd gone and done it anyway.

_I'll repeat what Rory said early on: John doesn't stay gone for good. Eventually it'll be okay. But not just yet. Especially next chapter: Warnings there for self-harm. (P.S. Yes, I was supposed to update with something fluffy, not this. *headdesk*)_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Warning for self-harm. **_

Sherlock Holmes was forty-seven years old the day he watched John walk out the door, and mercifully he was no longer the man he used to be.

Five years ago he still had a tendency to talk over people if he didn't like what they were saying. Now he simply grins, vulpine, and a certain something in his eyes usually shuts the offending party right the hell up. All the appearances of courtesy without actually having to be, you know, courteous.

A dozen years ago Sherlock couldn't be arsed to eat right, sleep right, he couldn't even string his words together into a coherent narrative some days so slavish was he to the busyness in his brain. Then came John and so many things changed.

Twenty years ago he was nearly inarticulate, so consumed by the fire in his head that some times he wanted nothing more than to burn to glorious ash, ruined and resurrected by his own fucking genius.

Thirty years ago Sherlock was all of those things all at once, a creature at once trapped and free, running as fast as he could in place and so confused by the blaze behind his eyes that the only way to manage the chaos was to cut at his body until the bleeding brought peace, a tenuous truce between flesh and intellect, a brief cease-fire that let him _breathe_ for a little while, that let him think without screaming.

Sherlock Holmes was forty-seven years old the day John Watson walked out their front door, and oh dear god he was about to become the man he used to be.

…

But first, oh first, first, first…Sherlock danced.

John had taught him that so very many years ago; how to calm a fractious heart, slow fast breathing, how to turn self-torment into something far less dark, by simply…moving.

Because you don't need to understand words to feel their power, to taste pain so bitter it takes the breath away—no, you just need to be human. So as a small man took himself away, an even smaller child drew a shaky breath and she prepared to cry.

So Sherlock Holmes danced.

Holding that infant close, he pressed her right against his heart so she'd feel its swift beating. He swayed slow across creaky floor boards until they half-near made a tune. He stroked her fuzzy baby head with a careful hand and a high pitched whine turned to happy, toothless babbling.

Round and round he flowed, past the mantle and chairs, round the coffee table and by the sofa, along the desks, going nowhere in particular and yet somehow ending up gazing straight-backed and still out one long sitting room window as a cab pull away from the kerb.

Watching that black car recede, Sherlock didn't realize it was the baby's fist digging tight into his curls. At first some strange part of him interpreted that tiny tug as the melodramatic heart attack he'd been waiting-hoping for, but in just a moment little Maryam put lie to that, yelling something important in his ear, then kicking him in the ribs to emphasize her point.

And so Sherlock? He danced.

But this time it wasn't to soothe a child's tiny tantrum or divert her from her tears, it was to help a man named Sherlock Holmes forget.

Turning from the dusty glass, he danced so that he'd forget how many nights he and John had stood at that same window, talking of a clue or a case.

Stepping light over the ancient old fireplace rug, he swayed so he wouldn't remember how many times they'd made love here, right here, damn the soot, the dust, and the dirt.

Sherlock danced around their chairs again, and he didn't think of those very early flatmate days so damn long ago, when they'd sit across from each another stealing glances, catching secret smiles.

He swayed and he whirled, he moved and pranced, and then he stepped up on the coffee table and ignored its protests and suddenly Sherlock remembered a long ago day when John had stood here, right here, and he'd danced such a silly, sexy dance and—

—no, no, _no._

Now was for _forgetting,_ now was for dulling a scalpel-sharp mind, for forgetting that out there was probably a baby, a real live child, who had changed everything. Now was for not thinking about that, or thinking about thinking, it was for forgetting and forgetting and—

There was a knock on the door and both child and man went quiet and still.

There was another knock on the door and one heart started to pound.

There was a knock, knock, knock on the door and if Sherlock watched that door and waited and if he was good, so very, very good and quiet, if he didn't whine, or kick, or cry maybe that door would open slow and steady—because it wasn't locked, he hadn't locked it, he realized now that he would never lock it again; no, as a matter of fact he'd leave the door wide open and welcoming for the rest of his life, yes that's what he'd do—and if Sherlock was good, _better _than good, if he was the best he'd ever been, then maybe that door would swing wide and through it would come a small man who'd left so fast he'd failed to remember his keys, who'd maybe left so quickly he'd forgot he didn't really _mean _to leave at all. If Sherlock didn't move or think or remember or ask or need or want or breathe, then maybe that dark doorway would fill with the only bright thing it has ever known, and in it would stand every brilliant inch of John Watson.

So Sherlock was good, so very, very good. He did not move or breathe, he did not think or remember, he didn't blink or hope or pray.

And there was another knock on the door, and one more, and at last a voice calling, and it was only by a miracle, a common every-day miracle, that the baby wasn't harmed, that the man wasn't broken, because when Sherlock heard the sound of that voice he quite literally fell, knees buckling under him, the tabletop and the floor rushing up, instinct tucking and turning his body so the brunt of the fall was taken on his shoulder.

There was another knock and at the sound of the strange crash 221B's door was carefully opened and it was only then, right then that a tardy baby sitter at last came to collect a little girl, and it was right about then that Sherlock Holmes stopped trying to forget, and it was exactly then that Sherlock Holmes stopped trying to be good.

…

Sherlock's learned a lot of things from John over the years and possibly the least useful is how to froth up a fine, fine fury—and then how to let that fucker out.

So after Sherlock got to his feet, a giggling baby quite unharmed, and after Sherlock said something to the baby minder—he'd never remember what—and after he watched the child and adult close the door behind them, and _after_ he opened that door again because it didn't belong closed, not anymore, never again, after all of that Sherlock flicked through a short list of exactly what he could lay his hands on.

Though why did he even try?

Because it was obvious. Anyone who's been in that flat for five seconds knows what Sherlock's brain and then body reached for.

Perhaps reach is the wrong word…

Thinking himself strong, bold, bad arse even, Sherlock was in that kitchen in two heart beats and his hands, those big, talented, often-gentle hands, slammed flat over the kitchen table and then they flew out fierce and wild, shattering glass and tubes and dishes against the wall, against the window, against the fridge and the floor.

He railed and howled and shoved and kicked until everything was everywhere, and then he spun round and snatched up dirty dishes and unlike a normal person going crazy with grief he didn't smash the crockery to the floor, he threw it at the cabinets, the ones eye-height, the ones _right in front of his face,_ and he kept doing it until he felt that first beautiful cut, a small slash across a cheekbone and then when he ran out of unwashed toast plates and tea cups he opened the cabinets and pulled out chipped dishes and kept at it, a veritable machine of pain and fury, breaking things until he was broken, until his face was littered with a half dozen slashes—one gorgeously deep, he could feel it bleeding—until his right hand was wrecked with even more wounds than that, until everywhere and over everything there was something sharp and hard and hurtful.

And then Sherlock fell to his knees.

In his head he was forty-seven years old and he had learned how to deal with the pain through other means, in ways that didn't include hurting himself. In his head Sherlock was a bad arse mother fucker and smart and strong and he wasn't crawling on all fours with his eyes closed over shards of crockery and tempered glass, giggling giddy each time he felt the terrible pressure and then the release as delicate skin surrendered to sharp edges and blood slicked over everything.

It was thirty seconds, maybe forty between starting this and crying on his knees and maybe he'd have kept at it, maybe he'd have continued to martyr his broken heart over broken glass but the new neighbors, the ones that won't last long down in 221C, they started banging at the floor and it was enough, more than enough to stop the chest-hitching sobs and the stupidity—there is no grace in this, he knows it, he's always known it—and so Sherlock stopped crying and he sat back on his heels and he thought very carefully about how he would go down the stairs quiet as a cat and how he would knock softly on that ratty door down below and how—

A knock on the wide-open door of 221B put a cold halt to that downward spiral and sucking in a sharp breath Sherlock said nothing and then he said it before he could help himself, "John?"

221 Baker is an old building, with sturdy walls of lathe and plaster, but even so some things carry, no matter how faint. The sound of two hearts being torn apart by misunderstanding, the wet, warm noise of tears.

That one word carried and it was really all Elizabeth Hudson needed. Hell, she needed no invitation into this flat, rarely ever waited for one.

"Get up," she said, standing in the sitting room, a good few feet distant from the nearest busted piece of glass-plate-flask-tube.

Motionless in the kitchen, head hanging low, adrenaline now cold and prickly on his skin, Sherlock looked down at his hands and saw the sticky mess of red and suddenly they hurt and his knees ached and his fa—

"Get up _now."_

Liz Hudson wings it. With these two men—who have become her closest friends over the years—she never plans or thinks or studies _the right way._ They are rare ones, these two, and she will not over-think her words here, not ever.

"Stand up now or I will come over there and I will fetch you."

Wrong that was wrong, she couldn't come into the kitchen, it wouldn't be safe it wouldn't be—

Sherlock cut off his own thoughts, scrambled to his feet amidst the delicate sound of falling glass, tiny shards raining down from his palms and the knees of his trousers and—

"Come here."

He grunted and looked into her dark eyes and the heels of his shoes ground broken things into dust and there he was standing in front of her, this six foot man before this tiny, iron-spined woman, and he waited for what she would do, unsure of whether it would be comforting or cross and realizing he didn't care which because—

"What did you do?"

Sherlock huffed out a quick breath, shocked and then ready to say something sharp, but instead he sucked in a tired breath and he said something true.

"I…I got depressed."


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock's big in every way you can be big—character, brain, body. Slap beautiful on that, frost it with occasional (grudging) courtesy and who wouldn't look at Sherlock over John?

Which is just my way of telling you that people naturally focus on Sherlock unless John makes a point of drawing that focus. He rarely does.

So the fact that John was right now alone in his anger and his anguish was fine by him. Right now, this minute, he didn't need to _talk it out._ Shout it out, smash it out, swear it out sure, but sitting in the back of a quietly humming cab he was just fine locked up in his head with his thoughts, with his pain, with his—

"Stop the car. Stop. Stop stop _stop."_

They'd gone barely more than a mile. Didn't matter. John yanked a twenty pound note from his wallet, nearly tore it in half, bit his lip to prevent the words, any words, thrust it at the driver and fled on foot down Oxford Street.

He walked toward…toward…toward nowhere. He stopped and turned around. Then turned again. And again. Until he'd circled absolutely nothing three times. At the end his heart was pounding so hard and hurt so much he couldn't swallow past the tightness in his throat, he couldn't …he couldn't…he couldn't _not cry._

Stumbling down a pedestrian side street he pressed his back against a shop wall, dipped chin to chest and cried without moving or making a single sound.

He watched his tears drip fast onto the pavement, tiny detonations turning the pale concrete dark, and for a moment he almost raged, almost scrubbed at his eyes in frustration. Instead he just gave up before he'd even had the fight and he let himself damn well weep.

Why did John cry?

Because sometimes you have no idea how dear a thing is. You think you do, you're pretty sure you know the exact parameter of your feelings on religion or family or a favorite food or _what the hell ever,_ but then something happens and you realize you had no clue.

He'd always had the drive to procreate, most people do. And most people go and _do_ it. And John also knew he felt a certain possessiveness about Sherlock. He always had. He generally ignored it because it was ignorant, vain, _and_ insecure. But today, oh god today he was weeping on a side street because…because…there was quite likely a child alive and well in this world that was not his and Sherlock's child. Never mind that short of gene splicing there would never truly be a John-Sherlock kid on this planet, that wasn't the point, the point was…

_What was the point?_

The point was to move.

John wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his jumper and started walking toward the Met, toward the river, toward hell, he didn't care, he'd take anything right now because there was _nothing _right now.

...

John managed a dozen metres before he fell.

The problem with grief is it that it's a paralytic. Fear, anger, need, oh god their vitality is beautiful—they'll march you across rivers, inspire odes, they move muscle, make words, but grief does none of that. It does one thing, one simple thing: It makes you weak.

It wasn't even a dozen metres before John tripped, reached for the rail outside a coffee shop, and gave up right there, sliding down onto the pavement, sitting with his knees up, his head down, crying again, silent and still.

No, I was wrong, actually. Grief doesn't quite paralyze. If it did then it would hush your brain too, but John's was blazing. It was a conflagration in there, five, ten, twenty thoughts firing all at once, an awful, predictable progression…

_Baby_

In his head there was an infant but he-she-it didn't have a crop of dark hair, or sloe eyes and long limbs. They just gurgled and waved fat arms and legs and…

_Child_

Sherlock's asked, over the years, and more than once John's tried to tell him why he'd wanted kids, but you can say, "A part of me will live on," and you can say, "Someone to love," but mostly all you can really do is press a hand hard against your chest, shrug, and answer, "I don't know…here it just…I don't know…"

_Father_

He'd have been a good father, he knew that, but he knew more: Sherlock would have been brilliant. Despite that crazy brain—no, _because_ of it—he'd have had so much to give, rare gifts, unique insight, a heart both fierce and fine.

_Sherlock_

The man who didn't want it now had it—fatherhood, that life, that spark, that wonder, something new, other, grander, greater, the same, different—John groaned and there they were all of them, the ugly emotions, hurt, envy, jealousy, petulance, anger and it made him—

_Hate_

—that child, that infant, that—oh god no, no no no, not that, not that don't think that it made him feel so god damn—

_Awful_

_Alone_

_Alone_

_Alone_

John grew up with an alcoholic mother. John grew up with an alcoholic sister. John's been up-close and personal with dying and then been damn well dead. John understood loneliness and maybe by now he should know how to handle that empty, hopeless place, but he didn't. All he knew was it was like falling and yet it was utterly still. It was black and silent and he didn't know how breath right inside the pain of it.

_Stop_

The conflagration inside jumped a firewall and John lifted his head.

He looked at men and women walking by and all at once he cared what others saw. He was a fifty-two year old man with fine clothes, an expensive haircut, and god damn imported shoes—oh it took five or six years, but eventually Sherlock's sartorial sense had rubbed off on him—and he was slumped in front of a Starbucks weeping in public.

_Yeah? Well, fuck _you.

Grief had now made way for anger.

John took a deep, shaky breath and stood up. He swiped his hands across his eyes again, and took another breath. Then another. Then a third. Then he saw something. A young man in a jewelry shop, watching him.

John's not tall but when John _stands_ tall you see…John. That means you see dark eyes with a level gaze. A face that doesn't smile half so often as it should but transforms to beauty when it does. You see a veteran of war, a man of strong convictions, a solid, serious man who could prove to you he is more than you'll ever be but who never will. Why? Because he's simply more than you or I will ever be and that point, my friend, needs no proving.

So that John, _that one,_ the one standing tall—with tear streaks still on his cheeks—he stared at that boy.

Twenty-three, maybe twenty-five, that broad-shouldered babe was beautiful. John's mouth quirked in a brief smile. He'd always gone for pretty, even before he knew he did. And oh this boy was pretty, with dark eyes offset by close-cropped brown hair, and when he talked to customers, he had a smile that lit up his face.

John dropped his chin and stared so hard at the boy his look could be felt like a press of hot fingers against skin. _I could do this,_ he thought fiercely to a man that wasn't there. _There's a world of pretty boys, you god damn arrogant fuck. Boys with bigger hearts and bigger cocks and bigger…_

Fists clenched so hard his entire body shook with the rage, John felt suddenly sick.

And anger made way for grief again.

With a groan John turned and stumbled down a side street and pressed his forehead against cool brick and clutched at his guts with one hand and moaned, "God damn it god damn it…" and only realized he was banging his forehead soft-hard against the damned wall when he heard himself say…

"Ouch."

Grief handed the baton to delirium.

John started laughing. He looked around but in this busy city where you are never alone he _was_ alone and so no one saw the small man beating his greying head against an unyielding wall, and no one saw him turn and press his back to it and then slide down, boneless and so tired.

"Worlds enough and time," he murmured, catching sight of a pale crescent moon high in the bright London sky. "We have all the world, and time my love, and not very far to go. Hand-in-hand we'll span this space, and learn what the silence knows."

John rubbed at his chin, something he often did when he caught sight of a faint moon in a daylight sky, as if sublimating a desire to touch that far off satellite.

"Worlds enough and time, my love, just you and me alone. All the moments, all the years, my love, we'll forget the pain we've known."

It was a crudely-written poem from a book he'd read long ago, something science fiction-y maybe, something that hoped to be grand. He'd never meant to commit the words to memory but he did, and sometimes he remembered them and they…

…what did those silly words do?

They opened up the world, I guess. They took the small and narrow view of a small and quite grand man, and they made him see larger things, better things, they made him look up and out, instead of down and in. They sometimes gave perspective when he needed it most.

Don't get me wrong, nothing changed, really. There was still fury and pain. For this wrong there was no forgiveness, not yet (maybe never), but now there was something more, when before there had been nothing but the fury, and nothing but the pain.

And oh, that something more was really quite something.

It's been ten years of marriage, a dozen together, and still he remembers so many thing so clearly. So many _first times,_ so many rare moments and precious, so many good things smudging and fading and pushing away the bad.

_Confessions:_ "Some days I want to pick you up and set you in a corner so I can go on being the me I was last year, but you're a persistent creature John Watson, a tiny tank of indomitable will and suddenly I want someone to be proud of me."

_Poetry: _"You put air in my lungs, John. You make _breathing_ worth while. When you say my name, my silly, silly name, you give it grace. And you show me a dimension to the world I saw but never…_saw."_

_Promises:_ "I will never leave you, I will never hurt you. I will never make you stay. But I will love you forever John. And even longer than that."

_Revelations:_ "I would die for you."

John looked at the moon again, stood up, then walked down a small street, and another, until he was heading south, following the moon as if it were moving away from him but of course it wasn't, he was moving toward it and then there he was, down past the Savoy, right along the river, and into the quiet, almost-always empty, gardens there.

And a faded delirium passed the baton to bitterness.

It was grey in those gardens. Loomed over by old buildings, shaded by trees, a faint wind blowing from the Thames, John realized he'd always avoided Victoria Embankment if he could. The park was lovely but cold, a long, thin strip of often-forgotten green in a city that forgets nothing.

John sat down on a bench and stared at the water. Sherlock liked this park. John laughed without humour. Of course he did. He liked almost everything that had anything to do with those weeks just before and just after they got married.

They'd had sex here, that was why he was fond of it. Because yeah, it was an overlooked part of the city, hemmed in by river, shrouded by the shadow of government offices and so one night—or was it early in the morning? John couldn't remember—they'd walked for hours and hours and Sherlock talked and talked, not about a case or a corpse or an experiment for once, instead he'd given that brilliant brain over to something so much more mundane and precious: He'd given it over to _them._

He was planning, was Sherlock, planning out their lives together, their goals. He was fashioning dreams they could dream, places they could see, things they could do.

It was such a rare side to this already rare man that John had barely spoken, anxious to hear everything there was to hear, and so he just held Sherlock's hand and nodded when he needed to and laughed when he should and that night—or was it coming up on dawn? god damn it why couldn't he remember?—he'd felt so unbelievably happy. He felt wanted, he felt the very absolute opposite of alone.

And then in their wild wanderings they'd come upon this lonely park and with whispers and laughter and hearts pounding they'd run hands over each other's bodies and mouths and then, even though neither said a word, they went right ahead and had at one another like teenagers.

They didn't even take off their clothes, just found a forgotten corner in this forgotten park and Sherlock's coat really does cover a multitude of sins if you're careful and you're quiet, and they do know how to be both though they rarely are.

What had happened to those dreams Sherlock had imagined for them? Those places, those plans?

Most had gone to dust, too weak to do more than take the shape of words. And that was fine. That had _been_ fine.

Except it wasn't.

Because now that John thought about it, he realized all their plans for _them_ had really turned into all their plans for _Sherlock._ Their lives centred on what _he_ could do, what _he_ needed to do it, and where he needed to go to get it done. _They_ revolved around _him_ as they always had. As they fucking always would.

"But you let him," John whispered, with only the moon to hear. "You've always let him, John. You always, always let him. Why shouldn't he do what he wants? He always has, he always will, and you don't matter, you don't matter, you don't—"

Tears, again more tears, stupid stupid hot tears fell to the slats of a cold bench and John groaned fierce at the river, furious at everything, at himself, at his pain, at Sherlock, very, very much at Sherlock and then he was grieving again, submerging into the misery because pain is not a progression, a series of stops from one place to the next. It's a maze where you go down blind turns, you double-back to a spot you've already been, you get lost in it and after awhile it's as if you've never been anywhere but inside that maze and that's when it turns into self-pity and if you're not careful you can do terrible, terrible things when you're lost there.

Just ask John Watson.

He was only a few hours away from doing the worse thing he'd ever done.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Talk of past self-harm. **_

There's an easy poetry to some names.

_"John."_

That one, for example. Some would say it well-fits the man it labels: Short, clear, no nonsense. Yes, well, on more than one occasion Sherlock has called such lazy fools jackass to their face.

Though it's quite clear he's not a man of easy graces himself, Sherlock _does_ have a touch of the lyrical to him. For some things.

_"John."_

Listen to the way he says his husband's name. No, no,_ really _listen. Depending on his moods Sherlock'll make of those four plain letters a caress, a plea. Given breath from that fine mouth that one word can sound like a command, a declaration, a vow.

The first time I heard my tall drink of water say John's name it came easy, already familiar on that nimble tongue. The exhortation at the time had something to do with tea and home and frankly if you're going to press me, I'll probably get all mushy and tell you that that's precisely what John is for Sherlock: He is warmth, a haven. And you can hear every bit of that in the simple way Sherlock says that simplest of names.

_"JohnJhnnn."_

Though today those four letters, slurred together and repeated like a mantra, were a drug, muting the dull agony of forceps digging into flesh.

They had been at A&E for two long hours, multiple radiographs, and an incision. That last to remove a glass shard deep in Sherlock's knee.

_"Joooohn."_

The nurse practitioner tending his wounds was efficient, polite, and ignored his patient's murmured chant. He'd heard similar and worse—"fucking whore" "right god damn shit" "bastard cunt dick that hurts"—over the course of ten years. Everyone copes with pain in their own way.

Sherlock's way was to pray.

_"John…John…John."_

So yes, it took two hours, multiple radiographs, and one incision, but eventually Sherlock's body was free of glass and fine bits of porcelain.

That just left Sherlock's heart in pieces and his soul ground to dust.

…

Neither he nor Elizabeth talked about much while they were at hospital, and little more than the obvious on their way home. "Wonder if it'll scar." "Might need antibiotics." "Should probably stay away from particularly virulent moulds awhile." But about the absent John Watson and the reason he was gone they did not speak one word.

That was about to change.

Standing just inside the door of 221B Liz said, "Ten words, Sherlock."

It was an old trick that one. John had started it over a decade ago. _Explain in ten words what is happening here._ No dissembling, excuses, justifications. For a man bent on facts Sherlock can veer wildly from them when he's in a panic, feeling self-righteous, or just confused.

"Tell me."

Despite the fact that Sherlock looks like a damned alien, despite the fact that he thinks and acts like one too, Sherlock is English right down to his slightly crooked teeth. So he did then what he has seen John do times past counting. He turned away from Liz with a nod—_come along,_ that gesture said—and he went to put the kettle on.

Instead he and his landlady stopped in the kitchen doorway and they blinked down at the shattered glass winking brightly up at them.

"I…"

One.

"I…"

Still one.

"I have…"

Two.

Sherlock scowled, proud. He didn't want to say the word. The stupid word that was for stupid people. Not for someone like him. Not for—

"…depression."

So far so obvious. Mrs. Hudson has known this about Sherlock since before the first time she stole me off the mantle. _Why_ do you think she stole me off the mantle? Because sometimes you help the only way you know how and for Liz that was by providing a distraction, even one as simple as hide-the-skull.

"I'm…I stopped…"

It was physically painful to hear Sherlock's physical pain, but Liz just stood there and helped the only way she could. She waited. Stealing a skull wouldn't really be appropriate right now.

"I stopped taking the medication—"

Sherlock grunted, paused, frowned. Continued.

"—because it's been years since—"

Sherlock shifted and they both heard the tiny crack of something beneath his foot.

"I stopped taking my medication because the black dog—" he turned to his friend and was about to explain but she nodded and so he continued.

"—hasn't really come in years. Then…then…it came. It came and it tore at me and it—John was away. That's the only reason I tried. Tried it then. He was with Harry, remember? Because of her—"

Again, another nod from Liz.

"…and it felt like I was dying, like some part of me was dying. It felt like John would never come back, it felt…everything just seemed so…"

Another small shift, another small shatter.

"A friend…well, John's friend, Lucy, she…the thing is, John's always wanted children. And she asked, and somehow it seemed…"

This was too much. Enough was enough. Standing still and patient at Sherlock's side Liz rapped her knuckles against Sherlock's leg. _Get on with it._

"I, um, donated sperm. For John's friend Lucy. When she asked."

John's been careful about what he says around Sherlock. As much as he wanted kids at thirty, thirty-five, even forty, he didn't talk about it too much because he knew the feeling wasn't shared.

That doesn't mean he didn't talk about it with someone else.

If you had asked Elizabeth Hudson for a way Sherlock could have hurt John more she would have told you there was none. The great detective could have sold their possessions, slept with a dozen men, or left John to go live in a garret and so long as Sherlock was happy the good doctor would eventually cope.

But not this, no.

"Oh Sherlock."

They stood there, the tall man, the small woman, and they looked at a hundred slivers of glass glinting in the low light, at thick shards of heavy porcelain. Neither of them thought to sit down or turn on a light as the grey afternoon grew dark. They just stood and stared at the ruin Sherlock had made and they each said a few things.

"He won't forgive this."

Liz Hudson nodded. "Would you?"

The glass…the glass felt like it was in his guts, cutting carefully, gently, deeply. He thought maybe he was bleeding inside, that the pain was exactly that sharp, that heartless. Slowly, like a soft rain, Sherlock went to his wounded, bandaged knees.

The pain was wonderful.

Oh but he didn't stay there. As much as he craved the penance of that pain he wouldn't do it here, in front of this woman. No, he'd save that self-indulgent atonement for later.

"It felt like he wasn't coming back."

Liz blew out a sharp, inelegant breath. "You liar," she said in that soft, pretty voice of hers. "You selfish little liar."

Why does Sherlock even try any more? He's completely lost the knack of lying well. Oh he can still deceive suspects and spectators, but his ability to dissemble with those he loves? That skill's long since turned to dust.

"Everyone wants to live forever. That's what babies are about, you know. And you're not immune, Sherlock. No one is."

They would talk about the words between her words some day, about the things she did not say about a part of her life she had not lived. But that conversation—over a long New Year's night—was a few years in the future.

"He never would have known if you hadn't told him. But you told him Sherlock. Why did you do that? Why'd you hurt him on purpose."

_I didn't do it on purpose._

He was going to say that, the big, damn idiot. But he didn't. He managed to shut his mouth before the words emerged.

Chalk one up for the fool.

"I have all day. And I really want to know."

Sherlock had all day too.

The experiments in progress? Two out of three of lay shattered on the floor, irrevocably ruined. That final third would never be finished due to profound indifference.

The case that was about to come in—one John'd been cultivating for a week—Sherlock would never know the details because he would erase the message from the answer phone the moment he knew it wasn't John.

Sherlock had all day, and so Sherlock could have figured out a nice long way to answer the question, something that made him sound kinder, something that made him sound good.

But he was already tired of hearing his own voice—the one full of tears though he wasn't crying.

"I wanted him to react. I wanted him to…be passionate about something. I wanted us to run."

Give a man a fork and he'll decide he really wanted a spoon.

Give that man a Monet and he'll suddenly realize he prefers Pollock.

And give a man a great and abiding love, one that has gone a little quiet, a little bit gentle, and apparently he will find himself in want of…what?

Fire, passion, drama.

Damnation.

Because it's the curse of the living, this wanting what we don't have—even when what we have is rare as comets, as sweet and fine as the softest kiss.

And that curse was Sherlock's, just as much as it was anyone's. He missed the common days of before, the days full of risk and uncertainty, he missed the danger and the learning, the unearthing, the trial-by-fire figuring out who this man was, this small doctor, this amazing creature who sometimes went silent when he shouldn't and sometimes talked a blue streak when he really just needed to shut up.

Ultimately Sherlock missed a thing that had never existed, he missed a _perfect moment in time._

Inclined toward black moods and boredom, still fighting with his brother, friendless but for his flatmate, ignorant of simple things that would actually make him better at what he did (emotions, human emotions, it was as simple as that), Sherlock's past was no prize.

But of course that's the other curse of the living: We're so good at forgetting the truth when we want to.

Here's the problem with Sherlock Holmes. With anyone really. If you love the good, generally it means you've got to put up with the bad. Yet so few of us are good at self-denial, and Sherlock? He almost never even _tries._

So when he felt that tiny seed of discontent sprout in his belly? The one that pushed its head above ground last summer maybe? When he realized he was a little bored by the contentment and the calm? Well he let that sprout grow. He fucking _watered it._

He stopped taking the medication that had literally saved his life—only once did the black dog take him so low that he contemplated that ultimate in self-harm—and then to cement the complete fuck-up he was about to make of his life, he decided to destroy John's contentment, too.

He went and gave to a friend—not even his friend really, he'd met her only twice—the one thing he really had that was uniquely his: himself.

Took just ten minutes too, the whole wanking into a cup thing. He just thought about John. Seriously. Even after ten years of marriage he still masturbates with that man in mind. Almost makes you want to _hit him,_ doesn't it?

The paperwork for the donation, the counseling beforehand, yeah, all of that took a lot longer, sure, but the act of irrevocably screwing up his life? That was a one-handed deal and it took barely ten minutes.

"You couldn't have just bought a new sex toy, Sherlock? Gone to Bali? Got a tattoo?"

Liz sighed and suddenly she wanted to sit down.

It was full dark out there now, the days growing ever shorter, taking with them a little bit of her will, her energy, her focus. She was going to be eight-seven come spring and once-in-awhile she felt it in her tiny bones.

"Get me a chair."

Rising, silent, Sherlock didn't get his landlady and friend a chair, instead he showed her a courtesy of which he wouldn't have been capable ten years back. Sliding his bandaged hand into hers, he took her arm, guided her to John's chair (it's still John's chair; it's more tattered, a little stained, but it's John's chair, John's chair, _it is John's chair)._

She sat with a sigh and though Sherlock wanted to sit at her feet he did not. That would be another one of those selfish little things. _Comfort me, pet my head, tell me it'll be all right._

He took a seat across from her—his chair is new, a fussy antique of teak and dark upholstery, a gift from Mycroft after Sherlock managed to acid burn the other.

"No," he finally answered, "apparently not. Besides, John doesn't like Bali."

Liz thought about what to say next. She thought about it pretty hard because she was trying to _not_ say the thing she really wanted to say next.

Finally she shrugged in the dark, the motion clear as day to the man across from her, and so he braced himself, ready for invective.

"Don't…" she discovered she couldn't quite say it the way she meant to, so Liz said the strong words a little softer. "…die, Sherlock. Because if you did you'd destroy him."

The implication in her words was clear: _I would hate you for hurting him _before_ I would grieve for what you'd done to yourself._

Sherlock nodded. _Me too dear lady. Me too._

…

After Lizzie watched him put a dinner in his belly, after she helped him tend to the fresh-bleeding cut on his face, Liz told him to walk her to her door. This he dutifully did, standing still and quiet while she unlocked hers.

When she had accomplished this chore—arthritis is a plague and it doesn't affect just hips—she turned, looked way, way up and tugged a chin way down.

"Say it," she said, reflecting not for the first time that it was a convenience, having a friend with whom you needed few words.

Sherlock frowned.

A stubborn friend.

She shook his head by that fine chin and didn't bother to hide the fact that it hurt, using her hand like this—she was three hours late on her pills—and she saw him seeing, regretting, penitent.

"I won't. I promise you I won't. I won't. Not this again—" he lifted his hurting hands, then reached for hers "—and not anything worse."

She waited.

He frowned again.

But Elizabeth Hudson would stand there until he said it and this, _this_ is Sherlock's absolute curse: the only people he loves with all his soul are twice his strength of heart.

Fine, yes, all right already, he would say what needed saying.

"If I did…if I wanted to—and I don't, I don't—I'll come tell you first."

Liz held his eye.

"I will. I will. I promise you I will."

Liz held his eye and said very softly, "You will what, Sherlock?"

"I'll live."


	6. Chapter 6

A long time ago a sweet thing happened. John and Sherlock got married a second time.

John had meant the occasion to be grand, the moment sacred and well-witnessed, but that's not what happened at first.

Mostly that was because they got lost on the way, these two men who know London better than they know one another's faces, and those, oh those they know by heart, by hand, by sight, so that's a level of lost that's really quite saying something.

What it _doesn't _say is that it was John's fault, because John was the only one who knew where they were going and what they were doing when they got there, so as they became more deeply misplaced and in one instance passed by the same park-bench drunk twice, well John finally couldn't stand it any more, the whole we're-nowhere-near-where-we're-supposed-to-be-and-I-need-to-do-this-now-now-_now._

So my beautiful little BAMF stopped everything, he tugged Sherlock close, and he went to his knees in front of a shut-tight bank somewhere far south of Southwark, and right there in front of half a dozen tourists and a stay-at-home-dad taking the twins for a walk, John Watson looked up into the rarest eyes he'd ever seen and he recited again his wedding vows, slipping on Sherlock's finger a thin, delicate band of silver, one that nestled snug right over the one already there.

Then, unexpectedly, romantically, and quite perfectly, Sherlock Holmes, chin to chest and staring at their joined hands as if they were a quiet miracle, well he solemnly spoke his wedding vows in reply. Then he helped John rise, kissed him awhile, and pretty soon afterward they found the blasted venue, did it all again, and went out with friends and had some really lovely cake.

I tell you all this because I think right about now you need to know how John and Sherlock celebrate their wedding anniversary nine years and nine months from today.

Yes, I just thought that I needed to hear that little story, okay? _You,_ I mean _you_ needed to hear it.

Because nine years and some many months before that pretty, pretty day, serendipity and one quite terrible choice had John on his knees again, a ray of morning sun warm at his back.

…

The cobblestones were cold, John thought, and it was all so _symbolic, _so fucking _allegorical._ He'd laugh if he had it in him. Failing that, he'd rage over his own stupidity, but rage needs fuel to fire it and slumped there on his knees John was god damn empty.

So that just left despair.

Because I'll tell you now, sharp and fast: John knew what he was doing last night as he did it, and he knew he'd regret what he'd done as he was _doing it._ You see, John Watson's not like other men. He doesn't need hindsight to identify his mistakes, he god damn _prognosticates_ a blunder and then goes full steam toward his destruction anyway.

And the reason for that was this: For just a moment or two, last night's wrong made everything right. It made the heartache go away, it evened the balance, it made things _fair._ If you can call it fair when a bullet's answered with a bomb, or a shout with a scream.

Twelve hours ago John knew such foolish maths belonged to children meting out playground justice. It wasn't until after he'd done the deed, making the biggest mistake of his life, that he realized grown men did, too.

And that mistake, that _bomb,_ that scream, it happened after his little party with self-pity down by the Thames, after sitting on a quiet park bench in Victoria Embankment and both soothing himself with memory and riling himself with self-righteousness.

"Oh, hello!"

He'd walked aimless another hour or two after the park, and it wasn't until he was far north, in Bethnal Green, that he remembered the party invitation—the one he'd two weeks ago declined—and it wasn't until he was knocking on the door that he maybe started to realize why he was there.

"Come in, come in, Ravi'll be so happy you're here."

John didn't know the woman who opened the door to him, but he smiled as if he did. She grinned right back, familiar with his face. She'd see it on the evening news occasionally, in the paper, on the back of a book jacket.

She stepped aside to let him in, her gaze following as he passed. She didn't look behind him for a tall, pretty man, she didn't even ask if he'd be along later. Something inside John went hot with quick pleasure at that, then cold with faster shame.

Because know this: John's never needed proof of his own frailty. From psychosomatic limp to a temper ever-inclined to flare, from an addiction to thrills to a weakness for junk food, he's a fucking festival of faults is my dear John and of these he is painfully aware. But the one that sucks the most, the one of which his is justifiably ashamed, and the one that was going to damn well bite him in the arse very soon was this:

John needed to be seen.

It was a recent frailty that one, just in the last two or three years. Maybe it was the curse of being married to a beautiful man—he's got threads of grey scattered through his dark hair, and crows feet at the corner of his eyes, but that's diminished Sherlock's beauty not at all—or perhaps it was an affliction borne of always being in the shadow of greatness, but whatever the reason, over the years John has learned to love it when a gaze lights on him…and lingers.

It happens a lot, of course. John's the approachable one, always has been and no matter how much Sherlock learns about being 'normal' he will never be like other people. When people want a piece of Sherlock, they usually go through John to get it.

But that wasn't the same at all.

What John craved was attention that had nothing at all to do with his famous husband, that even had nothing to do with John's own justified fame. John loved it when a man or a woman looked at him because they liked what they saw. He wanted to be flirted with, teased, wooed a little.

It was fucking pitiful and he'd _tell_ you that it was. That wasn't the same as doing anything about it, though, was it?

Look, I'm trying to say is one simple thing: John stepped through that door and he was still _angry_ and he was still _self-righteous, _and he was about to enter a crowded room and be _seen._ And that wasn't going to lead to anything good.

I know I'm not a therapist anymore except I am, I've never stopped. With these two I've never stopped.

I wish they'd let me stop.

…

The sun was hot across his shoulders though the air and the cobblestones were cold enough to make him shake and John would get up off his god damn knees in a minute, he really, really would. Because along with the cold, John was weary of the allegory now and he needed to get up and move, he had want of a coat, some food, a shower. Oh yes, a shower would be so nice, so symbolically fucking _nice._

But John didn't move.

Because he wasn't done dancing with despair. Not just yet. He had to relive his regret because that was why he was here, wasn't it? To cement in his mind how weak he was, how much frailer than Sherlock would ever be?

John looked up, but he didn't see red tile or a spire, he saw a cozy fucking fire.

He stood beside that fire most of last night. He drank too much, too fast, and he talked to whoever talked to him. Two women, both tall as reeds and dark, peppered him for an hour with questions about his book. He regaled them with anecdotes, and that brought round a grinning man, someone he knew from somewhere but whose name he didn't recall, and that led to talk of someone's birthday, and raised glasses and then refilled glasses and eventually Ravi was standing at the fire too, telling tall tales of John and Sherlock daring-do he'd heard right from the source, small anecdotes John had shared over the years that Ravi managed their websites.

And that would have been that under anything like normal circumstances, because it's only in the movies that it's easy. In movies words are barely exchanged and a single smoldering glance is all you need to convey _let's do crazy-sexy things to each other. Let's go briefly mad._

Well in real life it wasn't quite like that, not unless you're very, very unlucky.

So through that long night, John had to work for his mistake, he had to _strive._

It started with a bump of the hip as Ravi talked, then a poke in the man's lean ribs, then a hand over Ravi's mouth as his tales grew taller.

It continued with an offer to help clean and a quick acceptance as the party began to wind down.

It turned serious when Ravi asked after Sherlock.

After clearing the last plate, the last glass, after saying goodbye to the final guest, John and Ravi dragged chairs over to the fire, and neither noticed the good doctor's limp because it was barely there, just a trick of the light.

It wasn't until they were staring at a gas-fired flame that John answered. He could have said, "Fine, he's fine," but he didn't. John didn't say so very much, actually, just a few murmured words that said everything.

And then John stood up. "I've got to go."

Ravi rose with him. "I can call you a cab. Or you're welcome to stay. I'll kip on the sofa, it's where I sleep most nights."

John looked up at the young man looking down at him, his big brown eyes sympathetic and understanding, and John stepped close and he opened his mouth.

I'll give Ravi this, he hesitated.

But here's the thing about Ravi Viveki: He's a _fan._ A full on fucking fan of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, the Baker Street boys. Oh but Ravi's a fan of _this_ boy in particular, this short fifty-two year old with the grey at his temples and the thin-lipped smile, the one who is the public face, the one who's easy to talk to, the one who listens, laughs at a stranger's jokes, the one who seems so very…good.

Yeah, Ravi's crushed on John since before he knew him so give the man a gold star for holding back even a few seconds—five, it was precisely five—before he opened his own mouth with a soft sigh and took hold of John's face with both hands and leaned on in. And what should have been brief became lingering. What was meant to be friendly became fierce. And a resolution John made long ago faded without fanfare into nonexistence.

Hands at his side, John kissed back but didn't lean forward, speak, or touch. Because if he remained passive this didn't count. If John took, received, was done unto…_what?_ Then this wasn't the first step in a very short trip from sort of cheating to outright adultery? Aren't you brighter than that John?

Of course he is. John's a genius. No, seriously he is. He was tested once, a couple years ago. Something to do with something to do with a case and never mind, I'm not supposed to mention it and no one else knows and the point is is that John knew exactly what he was doing and he was doing it anyway because he was hurt and this was a very nice way to hurt Sherlock in return and also, incidentally, to make his ego soar.

When he felt Ravi's erection pressed high against his belly that was the time to step back, get perspective, say a couple things.

"Ravi…"

Ravi made it easy for John: He stop kissing. He stopped touching. He stopped moving, except to take one small step back.

"Ravi…" said John, and that was enough to make the tall, very nice man take another step back, face flushing pretty in the firelight, regret already tainting the air sharp.

"Condoms?"

As fast as the blood suffused his face, it rushed out of it. Ravi tilted his head and said, confused, "What?"

So many chances. The universe was giving John so very many chances to _change his mind._

The good doctor's gaze dropped down, to the bulge in Ravi's dark jeans. The knowledge that _that_ was there because of him felt so. damned. good. Knowing someone else wanted him enough to get _hard_ over him…

John placed a hand on Ravi's hip, snaked a finger through a belt loop and tugged him near. "Uh…condoms," he said, softer, more shy. "Do you have…any condoms?"

Now it was Ravi's turn to look choice in the face. He knew John was here because he was angry and hurt. And he knew John wanted him only because he wanted to hurt Sherlock, and that knowledge didn't exactly feel great but…

_But, but, but._

But the physical can so often overshadow the mental if you let it and Ravi was busy letting the physical—John so close to him he could see the pale-hazel corona in the iris of the man's eyes, so close he could feel the heat from John's body—eclipse everything.

"Uh, yes, I do. Is that okay?"

Ready, willing, and about to make the biggest mistake of his life, John laughed a little and said, "That's fine."

…

You know what? It took awhile for the regret to show up. I kind of figured it would. A man as strong as John Watson would need more to burn away righteous anger than a quick shag.

No, first it would take a _slow_ shag and far too many whispered words of endearment (and it says much that _that _was one of John's greatest regrets, that he murmured soft in Ravi's ear things that did not, emphatically did not belong there). It would take tugging on his jumper over a wrinkled shirt and a nice cup of tea at his paramour's table the next morning. It'd take a slow kiss on the mouth and then to the neck and a smile as he walked out the door. God damn it it'd take at least another hour and some time in his own head before John finally, finally, at last and forever acknowledged what the fuck he'd done and what a god damn and unredeemed fool he was for doing it.

Yeah, it took hours before John's anger was all gone and what took its place—what will now always take its place—was a regret so bone deep that his joints ached with it.

"No," he said as the sodding sun lit the world over-bright. "No," he said again, stumbling to his knees over the uneven cobbles of a shut-tight church not far from Ravi's flat.

_No, no, no, no, no._

They say in the end you regret only what you haven't done, and I'll tell you that in my years as a therapist that's almost true. There is, was, and ever shall be one thing people _do_ that so often they regret and that's intentionally hurt someone they love. Most of us are dull, to use one of Sherlock's favorite words, and often the way that we strike out is making very unwise use of what's between our legs. It's not the only way, but it's the easy way, the one that brings a brief pleasure as we extract our pound of flesh.

John, like millions before him, was learning this in the time-honored fashion: Belatedly. And like so many before him suddenly everything became ridiculously symbolic.

_Shower._

Yeah, he needed to get somewhere and stand under a hot spray and maybe let it burn a little and—

"Fuck."

Smarter than most smart men John moved right on past the symbolic repudiation and head-long in to gut-churning remorse.

It's clear that Sherlock's taken on many of John's nobler characteristics, but over the years John's tried on for size many of Sherlock's, and an inclination to indulge in dramatics is one of those things.

So in that church courtyard John Watson moaned, penitent. He needed confession. He needed forgiveness.

John took a deep, shaky breath and looked toward the rising sun.

And suddenly John knew who would give him both.

_We'll never know how John would react to what Sherlock did because John isn't real. This is how I see him responding but if you believe "John would never…" then please write that story. John's not one seamless thing, he's a jumble of contrasting, messy, characteristics—like all of us._

_Also…a bit of relief is on the way. In the next chapter we'll meet a delightful someone we've met before, and a few reassurances will be given._


	7. Chapter 7

_Odd._

There once was an odd little boy. He was dark-haired and pale and he talked when he should shut up and he'd go belligerently silent right around the time he should talk. He was smart, too, this boy, and we all know how most people feel about people who're smart.

Still and all, Sherlock got older, like all boys do, becoming tall, turning pretty, going for awhile quite quiet. Then when he was fifteen a boy touched him, and breathless and needy he moved near, but the boy moved away and that boy called him…

_Queer._

It means so many things, and pretty much all of them applied to Sherlock. He _was_ unusual: that face, all angles and upswept eye; that brain, like a book with too many pages, its covers barely able to contain it.

Queer means curious too, and oh good lord Sherlock was that. It was that curiosity that brought his words back and he used them to ask question after question, and then to give voice to what the answers helped him see. Unfortunately his vision wasn't yet truly keen, and so he walked into rooms and noticed the puzzles but not the people, he tilted his head and detected whispers but rarely tears, and so some people, they called him…

_Freak._

Oh yes it's very true that on more than one occasion Sherlock's walked past a grieving husband to sift through a dead wife's things. He's asked pointed questions of weeping children, waxed rhapsodic about a crime even as the people broken by that crime are there, right there to hear.

But to be fair to the man, you try noticing a passion play taking place in the shadows when right in front of you there's a dancing bear. Which is the somewhat inelegant way of saying that for years Sherlock's brain was fine-tuned to receive one sort of data, just one, and it simply couldn't register the rest. Which made him very…

_Abnormal._

Human beings fear what they don't understand. If what they don't understand barks and spits and hisses—as the years taught Sherlock to do—then instead of moving close to make sense of the thing, most move away, toward greater ignorance and a damning judgment that pronounces the thing abnormal, broken, _less than._

Yet there are always exceptions. There are some who move toward enigmas, peering close, politely prodding. Elizabeth Hudson was one. Gregory Lestrade another. Each in their own way came to understand the riddle that was Sherlock Holmes, and for awhile that was good enough. And then one day something happened and suddenly Sherlock was…

_Brilliant._

John Watson was small and kind of quiet and ridiculously easy to read—just like everyone else. So for moments, then minutes, maybe an hour, possibly three, Sherlock treated him as he treated _them._ He bossed and he bullied, he ran ahead and waited only under duress. Then quicker than Sherlock could blink that small and unassuming man was keeping up, was right there beside him, listening, helping, seeing, _praising._

He was following and following and because he did, for weeks, then months…well when John Watson started to lead, in small things, in quiet ways, on instinct Sherlock turned from what he was doing and _he_ followed. And so over time Sherlock became…

_Good._

Just a little. Sort of. Enough. Just enough to elicit praise. Just enough to give John hope. But if we're going to be honest—if I, me, Rory, if I'm going to be honest—Sherlock didn't change all that much. He did as he'd always done, he did what was easy.

Well, you know what? That was about to change.

Forever.

…

But first, on the morning of the second day that John was gone, right about the time the good doctor was on his knees on cold cobblestones, Sherlock was seriously, no doubt about it, super-duper big time thinking about going from bad to worse.

Sitting on a bench in Regent's park, ducks and a few geese huddling hopefully nearby, Sherlock watched the water, his eyes moving restlessly from one fallen leaf to the next as they floated downstream. As he tracked each leaf's progress he had a strange sensation of movement, of being carried away.

_I wish she was dead._

He'd thought it only once but he had thought it. And now he watched the water flowing and he tried to unthink it but thinking about not thinking is a bad, bad thing and take it from me, it never works, it only helps the worm dig deeper, it helps it to feast.

So Sherlock sat still as cold stone on that lonesome park bench and he didn't see the birds all around him, or the leaves, or the water or the weeping willows or his hands fisted on his thighs, fisted so tight he'd opened up so many little wounds and had bled right through his bandages. Alone on that bench, underdressed and frail, he looked like some lanky boxer, one who's fought against an opponent far stronger than he.

_I wish I hadn't done it._

There. That thought. It was a keeper. He'd waltz long and round and round with that one. It was as self-flagellating as the rest, but it wasn't wrong, not really, not in the way it was wrong to wish away a baby.

_I wish I could undo it, I wish I could unsay it, I wish, I wish, oh god I wish…_

When one little part of his cold body felt suddenly, mercifully warm, Sherlock looked down and noticed two pretty pools of blood spreading across his jeans.

_Red…_ Sherlock couldn't look away. It was such a vibrant colour staining his hands, his clothes. It was beautiful.

Here's something you may not know: Some people cope with pain by seeking more pain. I had a young patient once, every time his team lost a cricket match he'd deal with the frustration by beating himself on the chest until there were bruises.

_White…_ Sherlock flexed his fingers. His ungloved hands seemed so thin, so delicate and pale.

I knew a woman who managed the suffering of a drawn-out divorce by walking in the park and striking herself with a birch branch until she raised welts on the sides of her legs.

_Blue…_most of his life Sherlock's dealt with depression by turning inward, turning on himself. Broken glass, needles, razors, they're easy to find and once you're in the habit of hurting yourself, well…

Sherlock fisted his hands tight, could feel thin skin pulling preparatory to tearing. He started breathing faster in anticipation of the blood, the pretty, pretty—

A goose honked and Sherlock looked up. He looked _out._ And right then, right there at that moment and a little bit apropos of nothing, Sherlock began to really and truly and quite possibly for the first time ever…

_Change._

And the wonder of it is: Sherlock damn well knew it. Maybe even the little ducks knew it. Because instead of opening those wounds wider, my dear sweet terrible genius opened his hands, those big, big hands, and placed his palms carefully on his thighs.

Because here's one of the countless things John Watson's taught Sherlock over the years: Indulging the desire to hurt yourself isn't bad arse, it's not cool. There's no poetry in self-inflicted pain. It's stupid, it's messy, and if you're left with scars for your troubles well, as an American counterpart of the good doctor's used to say: _fuck that noise._

Sherlock looked down. Sherlock looked _out._ And instead of bold and bad arse, he saw what was really there: gauze red with gore. Bruised, papery skin. And he thought _they look like a dead man's hands._

Then, with a tender little clucking sound, Sherlock ran the cold fingers of one hand over the back of the other, petting, soothing the angry flesh, and as the morning of the second day turned into afternoon, Sherlock Holmes decided it was time to write a letter.

…

While epiphanies were happening in the park, Mrs. Hudson had come and gone from 221B, and on the coffee table she'd left behind several things.

Fresh gauze and flannels were there, beside a pot of hot tea in a quilted cozy. A slip of paper lay flat on the table and written on it were two sentences: _I will come down to see you today at _._ And below that: _(Fill in the blank you great daft man and slip it under my door.)_

Beside these things was a sandwich cut into sixteen tidy squares. Lizzie doesn't know why John always carefully cuts Sherlock's sandwiches into such tiny portions, but he does and so she did, too.

After Sherlock had cleaned and rebandaged his hands, after he had eaten most of the sandwich and slid the letter beneath Mrs. Hudson's door—_two hours from right now or no later than 3:00 pm—_Sherlock set about writing his letter.

Like most everything he does, Sherlock's plans for this letter were vast. It would change everything. It would explain, justify, it would apologize and compliment, and most of all the letter would promise.

Sherlock wasn't yet sure what he could or should promise because he wasn't certain what John might want. Some things can't be deduced, he's learnt that the hard way in the last ten years married to a man who _will not be one thing._ John Watson continues, from one day to the next, to be mercurial. He adapts. He waxes, he wanes.

So Sherlock would have to think hard about what he could offer that would be _enough._ He was completely unsure how to do that so he decided to approach the writing like a chemistry experiment. Sherlock's a gifted chemist. He knows how to gather ingredients and measure, how to add one thing to another to create something new. Sherlock understands action, reaction, catalyzation.

Pacing the sitting room he nodded to himself. The complication, of course, was that a letter isn't chemistry. It's subjective, unmeasurable, and it's made up of _words._

Sherlock's never been great with those. Oh he's had a graceful moment or two over the years, he _can_ say nice things.

He tugged a chair close to one of the sitting room windows and looked at the street below. Fingertips pressed to his lips he used that big old brain of his to recall the times he'd utter words that had the softness of grace…and hadn't been whispered into John's ear.

_You look nice._

There. That. He'd said those words to Molly Hooper one Christmas, hadn't he? Back when she still lived in London? Or was that Mrs. Hudson? Maybe Mr. Chatterjee? All of them? Yes, now that he thought about it he'd said it to all of them over the years.

_Quite good, but you missed a few clues,_ and _Excellent, closer than last time. _He said both of those often to Lestrade, Dimmock, and Superior at the Yard. Did those count as grace?

Sherlock pressed fingers against the window glass, watched condensation form round the tips.

Of course they didn't. They were merely damning with faint praise. Perhaps only conductors of light could bring poetry from a chemist.

But Sherlock needed that poetry needed to add one word to the other and create something _new,_ he needed to write a letter to John that would catalyze him.

That would bring him home.

Sherlock sat up straight in his straight-backed chair and he came to a conclusion. When he wasn't sure how to start an experiment, sometimes he simply began. Line up the beakers and tubes, measure the acids and bases, tug out the notepad and timer and gloves and just…start.

He bounded from his chair and…

…paused to look at the open door.

He did that all day. Because he'd meant it when he said the door would not be locked, or closed. John's keys were on the coffee table, right where he'd last placed them. John had no way back home—in, he had no way back _in—_if the door was locked, so Sherlock didn't lock it, didn't close it and he didn't go from point A to point B in the flat without first glancing up, hoping something small filled that big emptiness.

Not yet.

So he yanked open his desk drawer, collected paper and pen, then threw himself back into his chair and Sherlock Holmes, who needed grace right now, just a little, enough to speak from his heart and right to the slow beating of another, he began the most important love letter he would ever write, and it started like this:

_Don't come back, John. Don't come back. Please don't come back._

Heart thrumming faster than fast in his chest Sherlock stared at his words, surprised, and then Sherlock bolted upright and, Sherlock _moved._

Blinking too much, breathing too hard, he paced that sitting room and he _imagined._

I think people think Sherlock's no good at that, at using his imagination, but of course he is. Everything he sees with his eyes is jumbled up, twisted, then turned inside-out in his crazy head. He may see the corpse, but he has to visualize the living body to understand how it came to rest in that posture, in that place.

So yes, Sherlock's good at imagining, and as noted has a tendency toward the dramatic, and so as he paced the flat—the lounge, the kitchen, their bedroom, then up the stairs and through that dusty unused bedroom, back down, back up, back down, for twenty minutes and eleven words.

_Don't come back, John. Don't come back. Please don't come back._

Sherlock's not a hero and not selfless and he's most emphatically not good, not really. He knows this the way he knows each scar on his body. He looks in the mirror most days, and he sees the lines between his brows, the ones that are deepening because he _scowls._ At everyone. All the time. For being stupid. Slow. Not _him._

So Sherlock didn't know what to do about it when something heroic snuck up on him. Because writing those eleven words—three, they're really only three: _don't come back_—they were the bravest thing he'd ever done.

Loving? Loving's easy when it comes with running, sex, joy. Fights? They're fine when they're about tainted butter, forgotten laundry, or the times it's not polite to cop a feel. Dying? Dying's positively effortless. It's a one-time-only offer, there and done and the suffering's left for those who survive.

And there it is. _That. _Living is what's brave, doing the hardest thing you've ever done and then bearing the burden of it for months, years, a lifetime.

Sherlock's mocked bravery, he's belittled it right to a brave man's face. Then, now, probably always, the idiot is him. Bravery is lifting someone to safety as you fall. Brave is…this.

_Don't come back, John. Don't come back. Please don't come back._

Sherlock stared at those eleven words because those words—begging John to stay away, telling him to run, to fly, to find joy with someone who could actually give it to him—they weren't how he'd meant to begin, not at all.

John's followed Sherlock for twelve years. Down alleys, into courtrooms, though the dark and the light. He's stood beside him again and again, he's been there, unstoppable, resolute, as certain as Sherlock's shadow—

No, no, _no._

As constant as Sherlock's _heart._

"Oh for god's sake."

Sherlock tore the letter in half, then in half again and he kept at it until the pieces were too small and then he pushed every last one of them to the floor.

And he started again. Because giving up isn't heroic. Pushing John away was not one small bit of brave. But opening his eyes and at last looking at himself with the same unrelenting gaze he'd turned on others? Now _that_ was finally, after forty-seven very long years, that was at last just a little bit…

_Wise._

…

_John, you once wrote me a letter, _Sherlock wrote.

It was a long time ago and maybe you don't remember, but sometimes I think about that letter, and I wonder what _you_ were thinking when you wrote it. Did you believe I'd read it? Did you believe it would change things? Or did you write it because you didn't know what else to do and at least in the writing you were _doing?_

I want to reread the letter right now but I won't, because then these words will be yours and not mine. I know mine won't be graceful as yours—I'm not this family's chronicler, its author, its _voice._ And John, you're all those things. You define us, you shape us, through the years you've traced along all of our edges and in doing that you've shown me at the centre our hearts.

I don't even know what I mean but I know it's true. Can that be? Can you be confused and certain?

What I'm trying to say is that…since the very first moment we met you've shown me not only us, who we are, and who we could be, but you've shown me _me._ But John, John, John, you are a terrible mirror. You distort, you soften, you show me my flaws, but at the same time you magnify my strengths. For all the years I've known you, you scold more softly than you praise.

And like a weepy child punished for an infraction and then later given a teddy bear, I only remember your apology and not my mistake.

For years, for as long as you've known me, forever, that's what I've done, that's who I've been. But John, John, John, I'd like to do something new, finally, at forty-seven years old. I'd like to do something for you and for me and for us.

John, if I may, if you'll let me, I'd very much like to…

_Grow up._

…

It took Sherlock no time at all to type his letter into an email.

It took a bit longer for Sherlock to make the decision to go through John's things in search of a phone number. Then a bit longer than that to find it.

But the call itself took just minutes, and the invitation came swift and at the end.

"Would you like to come visit?"

And the man who was about to grow up very fast said, "Yes, Lucy, I would."

_Yes, Sherlock's letter is kind of childish. When Sherlock speaks from the heart, well, in my head canon it's the heart of a child. And yet children must grow up—and no one can do it for them. It's about time for Sherlock, don't you think? (By the way, the letter John wrote to Sherlock starts the sixth chapter of Skullduggery._


	8. Chapter 8

When John was little, his sister called him a sissy.

Maybe someday telling a boy he's like a girl won't be an insult, but that day is not now and it wasn't then, either.

In response, John Watson punched his sister in the stomach, the absolute only time he ever hit her before she hit him.

The problem was, John went overboard with that single strike, punching so hard Harry actually cried. Harry never cried. In all the years of their growing up it's still the only time he remembers seeing tears on her face. When they were little and she'd fall and scrape something so badly it bled, he would look at her and wonder _why don't you cry? What's wrong with me that I do?_

He thinks maybe that's why he hit her so hard that time, that one single time that he struck first. He was paying her back for his own perceived weaknesses.

Now, today, on cold churchyard cobblestones, John looked at the steeple without seeing it and he flexed his left hand as if it were sore.

He's fifty-two years old and he only just realized that he does this, he holds in little self-hates, until eventually he must vent them and to hell with whomever he hurts. That's what he'd done to Sherlock. Struck out. But it was himself he hurt.

After Harry stopped crying that long-ago day, John had started. The relief of the brief violence was utterly subsumed by his regret. Even now, more than forty years later John can still feel the sea-sick roil of contrition in his belly, the absolute sorrow that he can't turn back the clock and take back what he'd done.

_I will be sorry for this for a lifetime, but that doesn't change anything. I know that it doesn't._

Because now, always, and ever, a man can only go forward, he can never go back. There's no undoing what's done, there's only coping with the aftermath.

And so John, who's always known that when he's driven to his knees he must reach out in order to stand again, reached for the one person he was certain would judge him, then guide him, then finally forgive him, and in so doing, help him to get _up,_ damn it, and figure out the most important thing of all: What happens next?

…

The first time John and Sherlock met Steven Marcus Piermont Davis-Howard, IV they were in a Scotland Yard hallway and proceeded to put on quite a show for the retired detective. The second time John and Sherlock met him it was at 221B, and John had invited the man and his wife Annie over for dinner.

That evening hadn't gone well, or it had gone _spectacularly,_ depending on who you ask.

Both Annie and John stand firm-footed and arms crossed in the _oh hell-the-fuck no_ camp, though even as their spouses were misbehaving with bags of blood pilfered from the morgue, they were kind of laughing and kind of resigned along with all the yelling.

It wasn't until the ichor got in Annie's eye and in John's mouth that they each got down-and-dirty serious, Annie swearing in French and John in sturdy straight-forward English, but both with the volume and the lyrical invective of a dockworker.

It didn't matter, because by the time blood was squirting across the kitchen wall Steven and Sherlock were so damned high off their combined fascination with the mechanics of gore that they honestly didn't even hear the curses and certainly not the threats.

That was when John had yanked a dusty half-empty bottle of scotch off the sitting room bookshelf to wash the blood out of his mouth and Annie had stomped out of the kitchen after him, growling, "If you drink it all I'll kill you and just imagine what fun they'd have with _your_ corpse."

By the time the gruesome twosome had finished experimenting with the half dozen human hearts, and had even-almost-not-quite cleaned up blood spatter from the fridge, the table, and the floor, Annie was yelling her third marriage proposal to John, who was sitting right beside her and _this_ close to accepting.

The third time Sherlock and John met Annie and Steve was at Angelo's over dinner and this time it was John and Steve doing unmannered things with mugs of beer, while Annie and Sherlock made extremely snide remarks in French.

And so it went and so it has gone for ten years and so it will for many more, for good friendships not only last, the very good ones help guide you through the dark, and step with you into the light…no matter how long it takes.

…

"Regret lasts a lifetime, John."

Steve sat cross-legged on his couch. "It's a bastard, because it doesn't fade and smudge and fall silent like the good things do over the years. When they talk about self-renewing energy on the news, I always think 'Well we have that already,' and it's god damn remorse is what it is, remorse for things we wish so badly we'd never done."

John stared out the window of his friend's surprisingly plush flat. A wise wife and a timely purchase had netted the retired couple their fancy W1 digs. John used to love looking out at their view of Hyde Park. Today that vast expanse of green might as well have been the Marylebone flyover.

"Steve…"

The retired Scotland Yard detective laced fingers over a tiny belly. He'd be eight-four this July and to everyone's surprise he and Annie had finally managed to get some meat on his rangy bones. He waited for John's words, though he had an inkling what they'd be.

"…you're making it so much worse. I can't undo this. I can't go back in time and undo what I did."

John closed his eyes and then opened them fast. Images of exactly what he'd done had risen unbidden in sharp detail.

Steve shook his head. "That, young man, is not what I mean."

Hauling himself to his feet with a grunt (god he hated it when he did that), the retired detective came over to stand beside the almost-retired doctor and said softly, "What I mean, mister, is this: Hurt with, argue with, rant and rave with the knowledge of what you've done but do not do _this:_ Don't tell Sherlock." Steve sighed and when he spoke his words could barely be heard. "Because if you do you'll break his fine heart and _that_ regret'll break yours."

It's been a dozen years, John watching Sherlock do the deduction dance. He's learned to listen closer than he ever did as a doctor, and John was a damn attentive doctor. So John heard Steven's regret though he didn't dare ask or even contemplate which person living in this lovely home had once so terribly hurt the other, but he did ask this:

"How on earth do I keep this from him? You know who he is, you know what he does. I called him a machine once and Steve, he _is._ In this way he is. Even if he wants to be blind he can't not see. He'll _always_ see. Especially me."

With age comes wisdom, that's what the young say. Bollocks. With age comes knowledge is all, by the time you're old you've simply heard and seen, touched and tasted more. You've been shown how frail we are and how frail we'll always be.

"Sherlock's blind."

John frowned, turned quick, started to speak then didn't.

"He's stupid."

John took a step back, to make room for his confusion and anger.

"For _you._ If John Watson tells him tomorrow that the moon's come over peculiar and it's now a pretty shade of green, Sherlock's going to believe him. That's if the choice is John-and-love or Sherlock-being-right-and-no-John. If those are the choices Sherlock's always going to choose being blind, deaf, and stupid rather than choose to lose you."

The older man raised a hand. "I know that in his way he started this. I know he hurt you." Steve sighed and his voice grew quiet again. "I know how badly he hurt you. And I also know what you know: In some ways the man's a child; some parts of him never grew up. I think, maybe, that's the price of his special kind of genius." Steven shrugged. "But _that_ I wouldn't know."

Steven waited for questions, but he waited in vain. Finally he asked. "Do you understand John? Do you understand that you don't get to absolve yourself of transgression by passing the burden on to a child? It's not the 'right' thing to tell Sherlock what you've done. It's the selfish thing. He'll know, yes. And then he'll tell himself he doesn't know. Maybe he really can do that deleting thing. And if he can what a mercy that will be. Yes?"

Standing there beside a tall, grey-haired man John thought, _With age comes wisdom, because he's right. He's god damn right. And John Watson you better get comfortable with that knowledge, because you've got a long time ahead to regret what you've done._

"Yes."

For awhile they watched green things in the park outside a slightly dusty window. One man saw a chestnut tree click its branches together, the other saw himself looking in his husband's eyes and wondering if he could really make Sherlock believe, if he could delete the evidence from his own gaze so that Sherlock didn't even have to pretend, so that Sherlock simply would never know.

"No. He'll know what he knows, what he always knows."

Steve looked at John and for just a second patted the other man between the shoulder blades. The old man shrugged. "He's weathered worse."

John sucked in a fast breath, then another. He looked at his friend and felt a sudden prick of tears in his eyes. "Fucking hell he has," said the good doctor in wonder. "Yes, he has."

That terrible past—which had started when Sherlock could still count his years on less than two hands—had in the end made the detective not only great, but eventually good. Everything that survives its making in fire emerges stronger, and Sherlock Holmes was no different. While that didn't lessen the burden Sherlock—that they both—would bear for this, it did put it in perspective.

"There's really only one way you could unmake the man, John. Leave him. There's nothing on this earth he can't weather, there's no storm, no pain, no word or deed that would destroy him if there's you." The old man shrugged again. "Most people don't understand that. But most people haven't got what we've got."

…_what we've got._

Therapy books will call it co-dependence. Need. Compulsion. Weakness. _Unhealthy._

Well fuck them and the god damn horse they rode in on.

If your weakness makes you strong, if your compulsion gives you guidance, if your need makes you a better man—and the man you love welcomes and wants all of these things—then my friend go forth and be weak, compulsive, and god damned dependent.

"When Annie dies…"

Steve's wife was six years older than he and though a robust ninety, she was showing signs of frailty, forgetfulness, fading.

"…oh John, I hope you're still my friend because I'm going to need one. You and Sherlock…" _Well, I know it's the same for you._

Through a thin glaze of tears John at last saw the trees in the park, watched a brief wind set thin branches dancing.

"Steve?"

"Yeah, John?"

"I think it's time we shut the fuck up."

"Yeah, John."

…

They didn't shut the fuck up however, not for hours yet, though little more of substance was said.

Instead there were long hours of reflection and ribald jokes. There was a lot of 'remember when' and then 'oh-dear-god-I-forgot-about-that.'

Though more than thirty years separated them, John and Steve had long ago founded a friendship on one simple thing: Understanding. They were both strong men who'd moved through life for long years alone, who'd braved nights of silence and days of violence, they were both men who found late in life a simple, precious thing: True love.

Oh I hear you laughing and I'll tell you politely to just shut it. True love's a movie construct, right? A cute phrase for greeting cards. It's not real, it's not achievable, it's…

Here's what it is. It's Steve and Annie. It's John and Sherlock. It's understanding that a lifetime can lead you to one place, one time, one person and that when you finally find them that everything else—_all of it—_finally makes sense.

If you're lucky that love lasts a lifetime. If you're lucky but just a little less, you'll know that love for awhile and maybe that love will fade. But what will never go is the knowledge that you had it, knew it, that for a time you loved and were loved with a whole heart. And if you're brilliant you'll carry that knowledge with you through life and let it make you stronger, smarter, braver.

And if you're not brilliant you'll make some inelegant noise and shrug and say there's no such thing and to that I'll say fine, move along, nothing to see here.

For those that remain, I'll say this: Nothing's perfect. You can adore someone, respect them, need them. But you'll screw up and they'll make mistakes, and you'll both do it at the same time and things'll look dire and black and frail. But nothing's forever, nothing's broken that can't eventually be mended. Ask Steven Davis-Howard, who's heart was shattered into more pieces than he could count a couple dozen years ago. When Annie left he knew he was done for and that was just fine. And then he was angry and that was fine, too. And by the time he was ready to move on there she was again, a fine vision of regret, penance, promises, and love.

Nothing's perfect, nothing lasts forever, but nothing stays broken either and sometimes, even when you break into a million pieces you can be remade and maybe the new shape of your bones and skin fits hers better. Sometimes you actually needed the tears and long nights and the waiting—a strange chrysalis from which you both emerge changed.

Sometimes now feels like it'll be forever, but no one yet has figured out how to stop time. So now eventually becomes then, and then becomes faded, it becomes old. I tell you three times, things get better, they always do.

You just have to be willing to wait.

_You may not remember him, but John and Sherlock first met Steven Marcus Piermont Davis-Howard, IV in my story "__I'll Give You F****** Fluffy," (found on LJ only, as FFnet deleted it here). I think it would be right fine if we all had a friend like Steve. (P.S. Next chapter bring tissues.)_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Trigger warning**_

Sherlock didn't know he was starting a ritual.

_"It was such an easy birth."_

He didn't know he'd forever mark the 16th and 17th of October as special days.

_"The midwife said she was born at 11:59 pm, the doctor said 12:00 am, so I decided Phoebe should have two birthdays."_

Some years he'd order young flowers. Maybe the tightly furled buds of yellow carnations, unopened English roses or lilies. "Small flowers," he'd tell each florist, "still closed."

_"She came out with a head of fine dark hair, a curl over her left ear. Everyone thought it was the cutest thing."_

Other years he'd send gifts, small things he'd noticed throughout the year, things he thought she'd like.

_"I don't know why I gave her your surname. A thank you I suppose."_

Two years running he bought Phoebe trees, planting both on a high corner of Primrose Hill so that each looked out over the London skyline.

_"Would you like to come visit?"_

"Yes, Lucy, I would."

…

The English serve tea.

Whether the moment is marked by joy or pain, equilibrium is sought and sometimes found with the sipping of a simple cup of tea.

"Thank you."

Lucy el-Masri didn't sit after serving Sherlock. She was bad at sitting down. A bit bad at making tea. Not so good at eye contact, and frankly awful at cards, but Lucy had a good heart, a kind one, and after university she and John had kept in touch, and she sometimes came to see him—then them—in London now and again.

"You're welcome."

There's been a softening of Sherlock's edges over the years. He's become kinder, more considerate. He'll never been sure if that's due to John's influence or the passing of time, but either way, and despite actually trying, Sherlock's still never quite mastered the tedium of small talk. He's not good at it no matter how hard he tries, and Lucy never was.

So they sipped tea.

For ten minutes they drank and looked at the park across the way, tattered leaves swirling across a perfect lawn.

"I'm so sorry about John."

Sherlock stared out the window, cup and saucer in his lap. Lucy watched long fingers methodically break a biscuit apart.

"He's not—" Sherlock began and then stopped, because it's always easier to lie if you say little. "He's not."

Lucy was bad at sitting, but not at being still, so she stood with her uncurtained window and carefully watched Sherlock's eyes dance with recent memory.

He looked down then, at the crumbs all over his lap. "I'm sorry." He stopped there, too, because it's also easier to make someone believe the truth if you simply say it, without embellishment.

He embellished a little just the same. "I'm very sorry."

The groundwork laid, Sherlock Holmes and Lucy el-Masri took tea, and got down to the business of confession.

…

"Would you _look_ at her eyes."

Sherlock smiled up at the beaming woman and it felt wrong, as if his skin was stretching further than it ought. The sensation lasted just a moment, and then he turned, held a photo to the light.

"They're dark blue…no grey." Sherlock pushed the photo a little further out so he could better see those bright pale eyes in the baby's brown face. "Sorry. John's the one with the words."

Lucy nodded. John's blog had been a hit within its first year. His first (and still only) book—_The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_—had been a top ten bestseller for an ego-pleasing eighteen weeks. Usually John Watson had the words.

Sherlock placed the photo on his knee, picked up the next.

"Oh." He lightly touched the image of the gummiest, spitiest, widest baby smile he'd ever seen. The child was grinning so big her pretty eyes were nearly closed.

"Babies don't really smile like that when they're so young." Lucy lifted her chin, proud. "No one told that to Phoebe."

And so it went.

"This one's in the park." Lucy knelt beside Sherlock's chair. "Usually baby clothes come in pale, faded colors, but my mum bought her little shirts and tiny trousers in pretty jewel-tones. That green one's such a perfect match for that lawn. Stealth baby."

Sherlock turned the photo over—_Phoebe, 6 Weeks _was penciled across the back—placed it on his thigh.

"This one's at my mum's flat."

Sherlock squinted down his nose, counted. "She's wearing five bibs."

"Only because she wouldn't sit still for us to get the other three on her." Lucy laughed and pointed. "See that down her belly? That's a wet patch. World class drooler."

Sherlock placed this photo onto the first. _(Phoebe, 7 Weeks)_

"This one's in the park again…" (_Phoebe, 7 Weeks and 5 days)_

"That's at her birthday party… _(Phoebe, ! Eight weeks !)_

"I can't believe I don't remember where I took this one, but that bib didn't last the day, as a matter of fact…" _(Phoebe, 8 Weeks, 3 days)_

"She spit up all over mum after I took this…" _(Phoebe, 8 Weeks, 6 days)_

"We never did find the pearl earring, though I did check her diapers for…" _(Phoebe, NINE WEEKS!)_

"That's Winnie, the neighbor below…" _(Phoebe, 9 Weeks, 4 Days)_

"And this one…" _(Phoebe, 9 Weeks 6 days)_

"And this…" _(Phoebe, 10 Weeks!)_

"And…"

Both Sherlock and Lucy looked off to the left, each not seeing the half dozen boxes stacked against the sitting room wall, each not ready to look at the photo on Sherlock's lap.

For all the complaints against small talk there's a reason it exists. Sometimes senseless words can comfort, the way stroking a fevered brow may soothe, though the fever still rages.

Sherlock isn't good at making small talk, but he does a little bit know how.

"You gave her a beautiful life." Sherlock placed one hand protectively over the pile of photos. "Each hour, each minute."

_Toys. Clothes. Diapers. Toys. Toys. Clothes._ Some days Lucy will read those six words on those six boxes a hundred times. She doesn't even know she's doing it until the words start looking funny, an alien tongue she can't speak. Then she'll tell herself again that she's going to take the boxes to her favorite charity shop but she hasn't done it. She will. Tomorrow. Maybe the day after.

"She was as fragile as candy floss, Sherlock, as delicate as a reed."

Sherlock placed his other hand over the neat little pile.

"Her lungs were just terrible. Like gossamer. She was always wheezing but she didn't need the oxygen as often anymore so I thought that was a hopeful sign. But every time, every week that I took her in for her checkups they told me, they told me, they _kept_ telling me what could happen."

Lucy looked at the fine fingers of Sherlock's bandaged hands, at long crossed legs, and she idly wondered if their daughter would have grown such graceful limbs. "And so I took photos of everything."

Lucy stood up, looked down at photos she couldn't see, too many of them showing a tiny, ten week old baby on a portable ventilator, a machine that helped her tiny lungs take in the air she needed. For Phoebe, breathing had never grown boring.

"We made someone beautiful, you and I. I wish John could have met her. I wish you could have."

Sherlock cupped the photos in the palms of his pale, wounded hands. "I did."

…

Phoebe Waterfall Holmes

Sleeps Here

_Goodnight_

_& God Bless_

It took awhile for Sherlock to stop crying. Each time he thought he was done, he'd breathe deep and look at that small heart-shaped headstone and again the tears would come.

The man who has never craved the boon of children wept now for the child he'd never know, and the one he'd now never stop wanting.

"I'm sorry," he said to the infant, the one with a beautiful dark curl over her left ear, skin like toffee, and eyes the color of sea glass.

"I'm sorry."

He was sorry for her short little life.

He was sorry for her suffering.

He was sorry for the loss of her.

And he was so very sorry that there'd been even one moment where he'd been jealous of her, bitter about her.

Long ago Sherlock had been confused how a woman could mourn her still-born baby daughter for fourteen years. And yet…

_I would give my life if it'd give you yours. And then there you'd be, something bright, something beautiful, and you'd grow up and you'd be…anything._

For years Sherlock has said to John (his tone always a bit derisive), "Sentiment?" "Faith?" or "Consideration?" Pretending mystification at the gentle emotions people insistently insist on _feeling._

Well he's never been the ascetic he pretends to be and over his years with John Sherlock's begun to pretend less and less.

And that slow process, as of today, this hour, at this grave, was complete. Any lingering ignorance he had—and there had been some—was gone. Because Sherlock understood all of it now, how you could never know someone and yet how they could become so very precious, so very dear. He understood loving a person you'd never know.

Sherlock touched the gravestone, danced his fingers over the words carved there.

_"I called her Phoebe's for my gran. And Waterfall…well, I thought it sounded strong. I don't know why I gave her your surname. A thank you I suppose."_

Sherlock brushed flecks of cut grass from gold letters scribed deep in black marble.

_"I'm so sorry for…everything. I know I should have waited until John got back from Harry's. I know I shouldn't have asked you when he was away. And I wouldn't forgive me either. Sometimes I think that's why she…"_

Sherlock had told her to shut up. They'd both been repenting and he'd stood up—careful of the photos, gentle as he placed them on the side table—and he said it right then, "Shut up. Don't say that. Don't think that."

Lucy closed her mouth because a grieving mother can _see,_ see so very well a man who grieves he was never a father.

"You did nothing wrong."

You can't live twelve years with a man as stout-hearted and strong as John Watson without learning a few things. Like how to say what's right.

"She's right. She was right. She was perfect Lucy. All right? _All right?"_

He'd stayed a half hour longer and then she drove him to the train station, but as she disappeared down the country road he walked the two miles back toward town, toward a cemetery on a long, low rise.

And now he used both hands to clean the grass clippings from the flecked black stone, angry that the gardener let the cuttings nearly obscure the child's name.

He laid yellow carnations—the florist had had only buds left at day's end, but Sherlock realized they were perfect—beneath the stone and kept brushing at the marble's glossy surface long after the grass was gone.

_"She was long, and dark, and beautiful…"_

He would never tell John, he would never tell John, he would not ever, _ever_ tell John.

_"Fragile as a reed…"_

But Sherlock would return here now and again. And every year on the 16th and 17th of October he'd order tiny flowers and have them delivered to a cemetery not quite one hundred miles from 221B.

_"As breakable as glass…"_

He'd plant trees in the park near their home, or go to Highgate cemetery and find a child's gravestone and place on it tightly furled flowers. Once he bought hundreds of pounds of baby clothes and donated them to the shelter on Wellington, and on Phoebe's fifth birthday he sent Lucy to Egypt, so she could finally meet her maternal grandparents.

_As breakable, as breakable, as breakable as glass…_

Sherlock brushed the back of a bandaged hand along dark marble. "So very much your father's child."

However Sherlock remembers Phoebe Waterfall Holmes he does remember her. For every one of the years he'll live—and for so many of the ones she didn't—he remembers her.

_When I was in the middle of writing this I took a walk in an English graveyard and saw a little heart-shaped headstone. There were no dates on it, there were just exactly these words: _

_Phoebe Waterfall Holmes_

_Sleeps Here_

_Goodnight_

_& God Bless_

_That's when I knew what happened to Sherlock's daughter. I hope Phoebe of the beautiful name was an old woman, not the child I've imagined here. I hope she lived a long and lovely life. (Phoebe's actual headstone can be found here: tinyurl dot com/phoebe-sherlock_

_One or two chapter left. Lots of words. And forgiveness._


	10. Chapter 10

John Watson's short, bitter war began with the taste of blood.

The nightmare was like so many others, dark and vivid. The streets were slick, each twisting alley empty but for himself and the sound of receding footfalls.

In the dream John ran toward those sounds, splashing through muddy puddles, slip-sliding on rubbish, and every time he was close, rounding a corner to the near-click of those sharp heels, they'd retreat down another pitch-black lane.

He never got any closer to what he was trying to reach.

It took years before John realized he'd spent a lifetime doing that, running toward something, never knowing quite what. For awhile he thought he'd found it in his mates, but they grew up, grew distant. He thought he'd found it as a doctor, then in the army. And then a bullet taught him that the only thing he'd found was distraction.

And then, and then, and _always then_…there was Sherlock.

And finally John knew what he'd been running toward. Six feet one half inch of _purpose._ One man, one place where he could make a difference and see the difference he made. Here he could do more than slap a plaster over a wound and hope, here he could actually watch his touch heal. He was able to take things profoundly broken—two hearts—and make them whole.

Yet bad habits are hard to break, and sometimes they come back to haunt you. Too familiar with running toward something, John went to war with his purpose. It's happened only lately, as he's got older, maybe a little too self-reflective. "You're just his shadow, John. You're second. You're less."

At first these pointless battles were small and easily won. _Fuck you,_ he'd tell himself, short and sweet. Because damn it, someone had to think the dull thoughts, get the milk, pay the bills, remember the keys and the coats.

Except…except…

John watched how people look at Sherlock, he'd see their awe, an expression he recognized through and through because he _still_ wears it and damn it maybe that was the problem. Even after a dozen years he was still amazed at how _high_ Sherlock flew and sometimes, just sometimes, oh dear god sometimes he wanted to overtake him, fly higher.

It was childish, a malaise with no true source, a thing that—so long as he didn't do anything rash—could be coped with by simply _coping._

The problem was Sherlock went and did something awful at maybe exactly the worst moment, and so John went and did something worse and ended up pulling them both from the sky.

Which brought John here, dreaming of the dark, of darting down an alley after a shadow he couldn't catch, and biting his tongue so hard it bled, that sharp, bitter taste waking him even before the pain.

Then, eyes flying wide, heart pounding frantic in his chest, John suddenly knew what would happen next. He'd asked Steven for that, begged for guidance the older man couldn't give, but waking to a cold dawn John knew. He absolutely knew.

He would go back.

Because here's the thing. John lived nearly forty years without Sherlock. Eventually John became Dr. Watson, then Captain Watson. He became someone respected, accomplished. Waking up in that grey light he realized that for years he'd _done it, _he'd damn well soared. But then he met Sherlock and learned what flight was really like.

Three days ago, when he was clattering down the stairs of 221B, the sound of his footfalls loud and heavy, John had been screaming, in his head screaming. _No, never, not again. This time no._

He'd been fueled on fury and pain, he'd been anxious to dredge up every wrong that had been done to him by the person he loved beyond all others, and he'd run toward _no, never, not again,_ thinking that it meant _we are through, __this__ has done us in._

Excuse the drama queen.

We've all got one, as a therapist I saw it often enough. When hurt just so, every last one of us has the capacity to revert to our most childish self, do things we've long out-grown.

Well blah blah _blah._

What Sherlock did could indeed have done them in. What John did in response could have finished them off if Sherlock's betrayal hadn't. But some things are tougher than other things. A footfall may crush a flower, but do nothing to a stone.

Waking on the morning of the third day after he'd gone, John Watson looked at the pale wash of light across the walls of Annie and Steven's guest room, and John at last gave up his small and silent war.

And then John hoped, and John prayed that maybe, just maybe, his marriage was a stone.

…

_Many call it Regent's Park…_

That's what Sherlock said, two days after he and John first met, when the tall man with the good coat was attempting to entice his new short friend to tarry at 221B.

"—but in fact it's officially called _The_ Regent's park after, of course, the prince regent." Which prince that might be, Sherlock did not say. "Encompassing 410 acres—166 hectares, if you prefer—the park has over 200 species of bird, including nesting herons and peregrine falcon."

John didn't know then that Sherlock had spent the last day and a half Googling London, looking for just such minutiae, thinking the best way to convince John to stay was to offer him amenities such as—

"—the Anchor & Pear is fifty seven steps from 221B and has the distinction of having won awards three years running for best, best, um—" He may have done the research but not all the dull facts stuck. "—_quizzes!_ Quiz nights. They, do a thing, a quiz thing and apparently they win awards for it. So there's that."

And so it had gone for an entire weekend.

"—and it's been voted London's spiciest Thai—"

"—the city's finest cappuccino—"

"—the widest selection of erotic magazines."

Sherlock had even taken John to a shop that made bespoke canes. "In case you'd like something nicer than army-issue."

And yet somehow, though it was almost literally across the street from the flat, Sherlock had left the park until last, the only amenity they looked at that John thought actually _was_ one.

"—containing an open-air theatre—"

At the time John didn't know that Sherlock had spent perhaps thirty minutes in that park his entire life. ("I can't think with all the quiet," he admitted months later, when his new lover suggested a walk while they went over the clues of a case.)

"—a half dozen cafes, restaurants, and shops—"

Over the river they went, beneath willows, walking round geese and ducks. They had coffee in the Hub and later John told Sherlock that he'd sat in that little glass building as if master of all he surveyed, a benign ruler offering the charms of his kingdom to its newest subject.

"—and do you fish, John? Yes, well you can't here anyway, but the park waterways contain carp, stickleback—"

Later John would know that Sherlock knew less about London in some ways than he himself did, and that what he had really done was not research London so much as deduce John and then tailor his investigation toward his new flatmate's tastes.

"—whether you're 8 or 80, the Park's rugby, football, and softball activities are, I understand—"

It really didn't take long for John to twig to what was going on. Sometimes people wonder at the speed of their friendship, how they became so inseparable so quickly, and John thinks it's as simple as this: Being curious, deducing, observing aren't just the skills of a consulting detective—they're the province of all things human. The thing is, we're each of us curious about different things and right from the start John was curious about Sherlock and Sherlock was curious about John and frankly lifelong relationships have been founded on far less.

But from the start John and Sherlock had far more.

John Watson had a cell-deep need to be needed. A man does not turn to medicine and then to the service without wanting to be of use. Unemployed, unfocused, John was left with that cell-deep need but no one that needed what he had to give. Then there was Sherlock.

Sherlock Holmes needed to be seen. Genius can't function in a vacuum, or at least this genius couldn't. Without someone to see that _he_ saw, that he saw what they didn't…well the seeing lost its allure. People think he wants the puzzle of the case, the challenge of clues, but that's only part of it. Above all Sherlock needs to be noticed. And then there was John.

And then beyond this—which was enough, more than enough—they shared a taste for adrenalin, for the dark, for early morning alleys where the only sounds were their own footfalls and the skitter of rats in bins. They craved a certain sort of…it wasn't really danger, just risk. It was the need to move quick, think quick, stay one step ahead. They craved challenge really, the frantic heart-pound of _flight._

And though they didn't consciously know it those first weeks, John and Sherlock had love. Almost right from the start and right down to their bones they loved one another for no other reason than that they just did.

This is my way of saying that Regent's park—all right, _The_ Regent's Park—means a lot to my boys. In some ways it's where they began. Began discovering each other, began falling in love, began a dance they'd dance for the rest of their long lives together.

So I wasn't surprised when, on the morning of the third day that John was gone a text was sent…

_Regent's?_

…and within seconds answered:

_I'm already there._

…

Sherlock didn't hurry.

He still does, mind you. Dashing down stairs and through doors, he flits and flitters his way through life most days but sometimes he doesn't, sometimes he moves sweet and slow because John's taught him that. "Close your eyes so you can hear," John'll say, "stop your ears so you can see. Stand still and _feel,_ damn it."

So yes, Sherlock's learned how to take time sometimes, and thirty seconds after he'd read one word three times, he stood very still in the middle of that park and, coat collar up, gloved hands fisted at his sides, he looked toward a pretty bridge not too far away, his heart flying along at nearly one hundred beats a minute—John told him once the heart beats that fast during orgasm—and he breathed open-mouthed and so quick he was light-headed.

And standing there Sherlock knew one very important, precious thing.

_I will let him break me._

In his hand was a stone. The stone was smooth, and about as big as the first joint of his thumb. He could feel it pressing into the center of his palm as he carefully fisted his hand around it.

_I will let him make me fit._

Yet bad habits are easy to acquire, most especially when you come by them young.

When still a boy Sherlock learned how to cope with being alone. He learned the art of pushing pain away, self-talking through sadness. He learned that being loud and demanding distracted from everything that hurt, and that was good, that was fine, that was _of use. _Problems only came because he never _unlearned_ these things.

The stone was Sherlock's reminder that that time was done. Taken from beside a grave —it was black like her marker and some part of Sherlock imagined he carried part of her now, just as she had carried so much of him—the stone reminded him that he was done being imperious, done being dramatic, forceful, demanding, _him._

_I will be better._

He was ready, he was willing, and he hoped very much that he was able to be more. To be good.

Heart drumming against his breastbone Sherlock walked toward the Longbridge. And though he wouldn't hurry, he knew he'd be there long before John. But he would wait patiently. So patiently.

Sherlock would be good.

…

John's got a memory for minutiae. Many doctors learn the skill, some better than others. You look at a patient's face and over time that face becomes a repository of symptoms, medications, fears and foibles. Eventually all you have to do is glance at an old woman you've not seen in three years and unbidden comes: _asthmatic_; _four cats who sleep on the bed_; _stubbornly resisting a cane_, like captions at the bottom of a TV screen.

Walking through Regent's John saw the park that way, captioned everywhere with the things he and Sherlock had done.

One new-moon night they'd danced in the dark in the bandstand near the college, both of them trying desperately to stave off the black dog after a case gone terribly wrong.

Then just over there, by the patch that frills up with daffodils come summer, John had whiled away an afternoon putting tiny daisies in Sherlock's hair while the good detective stretched out with a case file.

In the middle of the park, pretty much on top of the Hub, sex not once, but three times, each time after John promised himself they'd stop before they were caught but considering the most recent giggling rooftop fuck had happened just three months previous it was clear this was a promise John never meant to keep.

_Yes, that,_ John thought, staring at the trees, seeing the past, seeing the foolish things, the fine things, the care and the carelessness and knowing that he wanted more, so much more.

Not far now, almost within sighting distance, almost, almost…and then there he was, a dozen metres away, a tall man standing in the middle of Longbridge and John stopped dead, heart suddenly pounding fast and furious.

_He'll know. He'll _see.

Sherlock can literally detect a hair out of place. He once deduced a suspect's height, heaviness, handedness, and weapon of choice with nothing more than a half-inch smudge spied high on a window pane. He hears a hitch in someone's breathing, smells a trace of camphor on a jumper, he damn well tastes and touches his way to revelation.

_He would know what John had done._

Everyone'll tell you that John's the kinder, the braver, the better and the best in this marriage. He's stronger, wiser, he's a cut above. Everyone will damn well _tell _you this.

Everyone's a _liar._

Because suddenly John again tasted blood because again he'd bitten his tongue. Except now it was a wide-awake nightmare, watching as pavement gave way to slats of wood and then he was there, at the foot of a bridge on which he knew, he positively, absolutely knew he was about to break a fine man's heart.

Oh god I'm talking too much, but there's so much to tell and too many words bunched up in my skull. I know that when the boys are gone things will be said, myths made, facts forgotten and the thing is…I need you to know: _This _is their truth. This is their why and how and when.

And this is their now: John Watson with eyes shut quick-tight, afraid to lift his head, suddenly certain that what would come next would be worse than what had already gone.

John may not always be braver, but he is brave. So one breath, two, maybe ten, and finally, at the foot of that bridge, John Watson looked up. At the foot of that bridge John opened his eyes.

And at the center of that bridge stood Sherlock Holmes, eyes closed.

…

_He's taller. _

Walking slow toward his husband, John shook his head. How can a tall man who always stands tall be taller? How can one who's always looked manly suddenly look like a man?

John loves novels, even the occasional bit of poetry, but he's never believed you can read regret in the lift of a chin, find forgiveness in the cool depth of someone's eyes. No, John Watson's a big believer in _words. _Words clarify, inform, they're there for a reason and that reason is this: There's a whole lot less guessing when people just damn well _say_ what they mean.

But.

A body _can_ read a body. John learned that right then. As he came beside Sherlock he knew that in the last three days great shifts had taken place, that the man he'd known for twelve years was gone. And that he was more. That he was stronger, weaker, older, better, infinitely more delicate.

If John had been someone common he'd have touched the gloved hand resting on the rail. He'd have reached up, turned that shaggy head to look in pale eyes. But John's as uncommon as men come and he knows something no one else does: The language of Sherlock.

It's a rare language that one, full of odd gestures and ticks, unusual words and words with sly meaning. Yet right from the start John knew this tongue and had for years been its sole interpreter.

Sherlock would not look at him.

Because Sherlock didn't want to see.

_Tell me what is,_ that downcast gaze said, _tell me my new truths. Everything you say I will believe._

And so John did.

Yet John actually said little. He's not a good liar, John Watson. Hell, when he's nervous sometimes even his truths sound false.

But John said what needed saying. He lied by omission, and instead of admitting his own sins, he absolved Sherlock of his. And John said I was wrong. I missed you. I need you. I love you. And I will never leave again.

As John fell silent, Sherlock took a quick breath, nodded once. He jerked his head to the side, then made a gesture with each hand in turn.

A knot loosened in John's chest. Sherlock was shifting facts, getting rid of bad data. He was making room in his mind palace for everything John had said. Another quick nod, a twitch and…

_Head canon accepted._

Finally Sherlock Holmes turned from that rail and he looked his husband in the eye, but the man who'll outlive god having the last word seemed to have none.

Well that was just fine. There'd be thousands of words soon, and upon spying the butterfly plaster on Sherlock's cheek, the half dozen cuts littering that pretty face, John got them off to a fine, fine start by beginning an argument that had them bickering the entire ten minute walk home.

"You little shit, you better not have broken my favourite tea mug."

_Whew. Hopefully that final line diffused some tension. Lots of words—and the conclusion—are on their way._


	11. Chapter 11

…_twelve, thirteen, fourteen…_

He didn't want to count how many steps there were from the Regent's park Longbridge to 221B.

…_ninety-five, ninety-six…_

But he was counting anyway, so intently focused on an exact figure that he only half-heard the murmured joke about expired milk.

…_one hundred fifty-five…_

Or the thing about the amorous ducks.

…_two hundred twenty-nine…_

Or the murmured apologies that were trying so hard to come behind these other words.

No, John didn't quite hear what Sherlock was saying because the good doctor was trying not to _see_ and so he used Sherlock's old trick, that simple little ruse he employs to busy his mind when it can't yet absorb what's right in front of it.

…_three hundred and three…_

So John counted. He watched their feet on the pavement and he counted the hundreds of steps it took them to go from here to home, and though it helped—it sure did, it really did, yes, yes, _yes—_John's not as smart as Sherlock, so John kept losing damn count for whole seconds at a time and then he'd have to close his eyes a moment and _think _and even so, even with all that, it wasn't enough, it wasn't _enough,_ because John could still count something else in his head, a simple count this one, simple and small and easy to track.

_One, two, three…four, five, six._

Quicker than quick he'd done that, counted them on the bridge, the six lacerations on Sherlock's face. A military doctor can do that, or maybe it's just this one, tally damage in a blink, the better to focus on blood-loss, infection, healing.

When he left the army John thought he was done with that battlefield reflex but within their first month together Sherlock proved him wrong.

Oh but it wasn't just Sherlock with the cuts and abrasions, the sprains and bruises that needed counting and cursing, John always had his fair share, but somehow the good doctor never tracked those.

_One, two, three, four, five, six…_

…_seven?_

John counted his footsteps and he counted and he'd continue to count so that he wouldn't think about that other count, about how many more cuts there were on Sherlock's body.

Because John Watson knew, he absolutely knew there were more.

…

…_fifteen, sixteen, seventeen._

Sherlock often counts the stairs leading up to 221B. The sure and certain knowledge of that never-changing figure is soothing when he needs it, centreing when he needs _that,_ or, as now, something of a calming countdown.

When they entered the flat through its already-open door—John would remark on that later; the same as he'd remark on (and learn the why of) the small black stone Sherlock carried—they both went quiet, any chatter fading quickly to silence.

And then Sherlock started taking off his clothes.

He was unhurried, his motions economical though not leisurely, removing each item in the order most logical.

The coat came first and then the gloves, and right then John began to say something about Sherlock's hands but Sherlock made a soft shushing sound and then, with delicacy and care, tugged the tails of his blue dress shirt from his trousers, unbuttoned and removed it, and it wasn't until he undid belt, then button, then zipper that John stepped close and stilled those hurt hands and then _he_ counted—_one…two, one…two—_the slow pulse in Sherlock's neck and just like that he knew this wasn't about sex, this was about—

"Triage," Sherlock said.

Because nothing could happen until John knew everything, Sherlock knew that. His good doctor needed to understand the scope of the damage, see it with his own eyes, before anything as precious as normality could return.

And so Sherlock stripped bare, right there in the sitting room, and he stood still and quiet and he let John touch his wounded hands, touch and maybe, just maybe, foolishly count those long fingers to make sure every one of them was there, and motionless and silent he waited patiently while John went to his knees before Sherlock's bandaged knees, and because the air was electric, zinging with unsaid words, Sherlock said the only thing that could have helped John just now, six little words that brought the healer a quick and merciful peace.

"Mrs. Hudson took care of me."

The good doctor let out a little chuffing laugh, pressed his forehead against one long thigh. _Yes, good. Thank you Elizabeth. Thank you._

Only when Sherlock shifted, when John realised he was trying to join him down there on the hard floor did John stand and start becoming, well, _John._

Tugging Sherlock toward their bedroom the good doctor would do what he always did after Sherlock was tended to by others: He would inspect, admire where appropriate (rare), disparage where necessary (common), and he would do things the way they _should_ be done.

So the goal was the bedroom, though not the bed, it was the loo with its warm water, fresh bandages, and tape. There John would touch delicately and maybe count fingers again, and then wounds, he'd see how many and how far, and he'd rail against himself because certainly he knew, _knew_ this would happen, didn't he? Like so much that had happened in the last three days this too was his fault, the…

"John."

…blame for what Sherlock had done was _his…_

"John."

…even though in his head John doesn't buy into that bullshit, not really…

"John."

…but he believes it with every bit of his stupid, frantically-beating heart. Oh, he believes a whole messy world of stupid, does John Watson.

John believes every time Sherlock's hurt, every time he's confused by the whole fucking human race, nearly every time they fight or fuss with one another, John's sure, so very sure that if he'd just done something a little different, maybe Sherlock would have…

_"Stop."_

John stopped. Right in their bedroom doorway, a good dozen feet from the loo and the bright lights he wanted to get Sherlock under so he could count, count, bloody well count his perceived sins—so he could feel the pain of every laceration, every dried daub of blood, and furious with them both, helpless and hurt even as he tried to help _heal_ the hurt and do you know what? _Do you know what, what, what?_

That just wasn't okay any more. Not one bit of okay, not for Sherlock.

Not that it ever was, not really. Sherlock's always let John tend to him, cosset and care and kiss away bruises, but he's also reassured his husband that there was nothing he could have done, knowing John never believed him but knowing the reassurances helped somewhere, somehow, _later._

Well forget that. No reassurances this time because this time there wouldn't be any doctorly kisses, no tender care from the healer's hands, this time no.

It was Sherlock's turn.

Yet as soon as he reached for the buttons of John's collar, quick as a flash John took hold of his husband's wrists. "No."

Again, as before, Sherlock stilled and waited, and again, as before, John counted.

_One…two. One…two. One…two._

Sherlock's slow-beating heart was steady and calm. Again this was not about sex, this was about something else entirely.

"Let me take care of you."

John held his breath a moment, and then hung his head.

_Oh fuck. Absolute _fuck.

John sucks at this, he's always sucked at this, he wishes he didn't but he does and even as Sherlock finished unbuttoning, and even as he was divested of his clothes until they were in a pile on the floor, John gritted his teeth and fisted his hands and actively bit his lips to keep his god damn mouth shut, because John knew they couldn't keep being the same people they'd always been, they had to change eventually, they had to try harder, be better, and so they'd try, yes, all right, he'd let Sherlock do to him what he always does to Sherlock because he knew it helped to _help,_ that it focused, it…

"Hush."

Sherlock put fingertips against John's clamped-closed mouth and pulled John's head against his shoulder. For long seconds John stood iron-spined, was maybe thinking of pulling away because he couldn't do it, no, he couldn't just _take,_ he didn't know how and…and then there it was.

_OnetwoOnetwoOnetwo._

The fluttery fast beat of Sherlock's heart, the breath-robbing pound of a man delicately walking a high wire and terribly afraid he'll fall.

_Onetwo. _Please, please…

_Onetwo._ Let me…

_Onetwo. _Take care…

_Onetwo. _Of you.

John's heartbeat ramped up in sympathy and just like that one man fit himself carefully against another, and right there and in silence began the second age of the marriage of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

…

They didn't make love.

Curled toward one another on the bed, bare feet rubbing slow over bare feet, they tugged one another close, but it was for words whispered mouth against mouth, it was so they could say instead of do.

There'd be time for doing and _being_ done later.

"Sorrow doesn't ease sorrow. I'll be sorry every day, but it won't undo what's done. Only what I _do_ can do that."

Simple words, the lot of them, yet they sounded like miracles coming from Sherlock's mouth. As if, in three days, the man had learned an entirely new language.

"Your favourite tea right now is that revolting licorice and clove loose leaf stuff you get in Seven Dials."

Answering questions John had asked not quite three days ago, Sherlock carefully cupped his husband's face with both hands, listened to his thumbs rasp across the stubble on John's jaw, then almost as softly said, "We got married in 2012, and last week for Angelo's birthday we gave him tickets to see La Bohème. The month before that we gave Greg that ridiculously large curry cookbook. And while you weren't looking _I_ gave him that second, unopened tin of your revolting licorice and clove tea."

At that John giggled a bit, and Sherlock smiled. John giggled a little more and Sherlock grinned. Finally John went boneless and foolish and maybe kind of drunk with a fit of laughing that lasted several blissful minutes.

At the end of it John was growling and sweary. "Fuck you, you beautiful idiot. No fuck _it."_ John arched an arm through the air, batting away _every damn thing_ that irked him, and that was a lot—always has been, always will be.

"You're a damn miracle, Sherlock, and every time I ask you to change I think it's like…well I think it's like caging birds or putting fish into tiny glass tanks. It's like crippling something grander or freer or better because then I'll feel bigger and not as stupid today as I did yesterday."

John sucked in a quick breath, just getting started, "But I'm as dumb as dirt now and forever, an idiot because so what if you're big and I'm small? So the fuck what? And you are Sherlock, you're the biggest thing that ever was, you're—"

Sherlock pressed his thumbs over John's mouth. "No," he said, "absolutely not."

John scowled.

They've had this fight before, the fight to lay claim to _who is wrong._

When he first met John the idea that one day Sherlock would _argue_ with the man to take blame for something…well seriously, come on, are you an even bigger idiot than all the other idiots out there?

Yet over the years, as great slowly became good, that _is _what happened and sometimes the two of them will get so riled with one another for _taking responsibility_ that they won't talk for entire minutes at a time.

"Not this time John, no. You don't get to—"

John mashed his forehead to Sherlock's as if he could push words into that stupid, beautiful brain. "—your letter, your email that you sent…growing up…changing…don't you get it? You shouldn't, you can't, who you are is…it's…it's…"

John clenched his teeth and stopped talking, realised he wasn't going to start again any time soon. Because John was busy trying not to god damn cry. As in _had he fucking stopped_ since all this began?

"…it's too late John. It's _too late."_ Sherlock's thumbs were on the move again, brushing over damp lashes. "Too late to undo terrible things but not too late to do better."

"Sherlock, you don't—"

"Babies, children, I've never known—"

"No, stop. It's—"

"—I've never known the right words to offer you," Sherlock said, his voice no louder but more insistent. "Even when I watched you look and look at a dark-haired baby, even that day when I watched you watching and saw your heart beat slow so sweetly down."

John remembered. It was a few months ago, queuing at Tesco, both of them looking at a father playing with his eight week old infant. Only apparently Sherlock hadn't watched the child, or the father's big fingers drifting gentle over the baby's tiny bud mouth. He'd watched John.

Watched eyes go heavy-lidded and soft, watched a smile flit and fade from John's face. But it wasn't until last night that Sherlock finally realised the heat-lightning of elemental thoughts that must have flashed through his husband's brain, it wasn't until last night that Sherlock Holmes at last understood that in a world where John could choose—and John _could_ choose—the finest man Sherlock knows had chosen a life with him over meeting a fundamental human drive, he'd selected love of a man over love of a child.

And Sherlock finally knew the right words to offer this rare man.

"Children are…" Thumbs again, stroking over cheekbones and beneath eyes. "…they're the better part of you. While they're small, and innocent, and full of hope, they're who you wish you were, who you maybe used to be. When they're tiny, and their voices are sweet, and no one has hurt them yet…they're the good and the fine in us, the soft and kind, and they _see_ and they observe, observe _everything._ And when they look at a bright yellow dandelion pushing through grey pavement, or a fat brown goose, or they listen to the slow splash of the river over rocks…you see and you hear those things too. You stop and you look and you _see_ the things you've stopped seeing so long ago."

Sherlock closed his eyes, the better to see. "That's the wonderful every-day miracle, and we all yearn for the miraculous. I understand that now. And though I know you must have looked at that dark-haired baby and wished for a miracle rarer still, a child that's truly ours, yours and mine, wishing the world worked that way, that _I_ worked that way, I know you know it doesn't and so you _move on._ The world's full of things we can't have, so we best learn to want the things we do. John, you moved on, you made _me_ your miracle, and I undid all of that because…I didn't understand."

Every wound heals in its own way. For John, words are often the best salve for his pains. Words ease, restore, they fill him up in places he didn't know were empty. He needs words more than he needs just about anything. Except the man making them.

"More," he said softly.

Sherlock's heart suddenly drummed so hard and fierce John could see it in the room's muted light. _He's afraid,_ thought the good doctor, _afraid he's not saying what I need to hear._

"More," whispered John, knowing that now the words wouldn't come easy, now that Sherlock was afraid. He always lost the words when he was afraid.

"John…" Sherlock hummed the name in the back of his throat.

John closed his eyes and wondered what words he was waiting for, why he thought Sherlock had them, and more importantly, why he deserved them.

_"John."_

It was a little like keening, low and soft. It was almost the sound of a machine winding up or whirring down, something growing warm or cooling, it was at first unclear if it was something starting or something ending.

"I'll…always strive to be the man you…deserve. But you know there's something missing," Sherlock tapped his wounded hands against John's face. "Sometimes I don't know what's right, or if I do it's not until after, when I see your face. I don't know if they really do that thing, breaking a bone to set it right, but if there's a way…if there's…"

Anyone but John would think Sherlock's tears were for himself.

"…if you can ever figure out how to break me so that I can be set right…"

It was clear now. This was the sound of something trying to end itself, so that something new could begin.

"Shut up."

A quick breath, and Sherlock did.

Once, a long time ago, the Baker Street boys made quiet, unmannered love to one another. It was Sherlock's idea, to see if they could rouse each other by taking John's tendencies to the extreme.

_I love you_ became shut up, _yes please_ became suck this, and so on until they were giggling and swearing and taking turns holding each other down. It ended well.

I bring that up because this was sort of that.

"Shut up, Sherlock. Just shut the hell on up."

The silence went on for awhile and while it did John reflected how rare their silences were, how often Sherlock filled them with ideas, so many, many wonderful ideas…

"I read once that little dogs? We've bred them so small that their tiny brains simply don't have room for all the knowledge they need, the sense of self-preservation that comes standard with other dogs. That's why little dogs rush right up to big ones and bark their fool heads off—they don't know any other way."

John gently placed his hands over Sherlock's. "There's no one like you. There never will be. And the rare part of you, the thing that makes you unlike everyone else? I think it's so damned _big_ that there's just not room for some things in that head of yours. To make you more like me, I'd have to take away some of the magic that makes you. What would the people you save say to that do you think? They wouldn't applaud the addition to the world of one more person who remembers to pick up the milk. They would mourn the loss of the only one on earth that sees a florist's poorly applied lipstick and knows where the woman hid the starving little girl. If anyone needs breaking, it's a tired man who's still learning how rare you are, how fragile, how…sweet."

"You're wrong."

John blinked fast, startled. It wasn't the words, it was their tone. Over the years Sherlock's learned the merits of honey over vinegar and so he's tamed his tart tongue. Except now, just now, it was the old tone, the _certain_ one. The one that knew everyone else was an idiot.

"You're wrong. The world needs the kind of men who remember the milk. It needs men who pick up wayward socks—" John had scooped up a toddler's sock from the pavement one day, spied the mother ten metres distant, ran after her to reunite child with that scrap of clothing. "—who hold the door open, who sing badly so a baby stops crying."

Beneath his own, John could feel Sherlock's hands shaking.

"I've hurt more people than I've helped, John. I'm not blind: I see what I do. What I've done. I say awful things—still, I still do it, but when you're not there, not looking, not listening, did you know that?—and it's because I don't care. Because it's so much easier to get from here to _there_ if I don't have to care."

Sherlock shook with rage against the machine…oh yes, the machine, the machine, the machine. John watched for precisely three seconds as the stupid genius ground gear against gear, as his heart revved high and his breathing came fast and then John said, "I thought I told you to shut up."

Rare grey eyes went soft and just like that Sherlock Holmes went still.

"You think you're telling me something I don't know? Of course you're a tosser. Still. But you're still awful at maths, too. Remember that time Greg asked us to bring two dozen fairy cakes to that party and you counted them out two damn times and _still brought only twenty three?"_

John laughed and placed both hands over Sherlock's heart, as if he could slow its beating. "So forgive me if I don't agree with your figures. You've helped far more people than you've hurt, if by hurt you mean pissed off a little. People get over that shit, Sherlock. They move on from sarcasm. But it's not so easy to move on from murder, or worse, abuse, torture. If you've saved even one soul from that misery you've earned the right to call the rest of us idiots for the rest of your life."

Words work. That's why we use them. But sometimes they need more, just a little more, so when John saw the flicker in Sherlock's eyes, the loose connection that wouldn't let him fully _hear_ what he heard, John crawled on top of him and soft and slow and tentative the good detective slid arms around his husband, while that husband put his mouth against peppery curls laced with salt, a grin in his voice. "You've earned everything you have, Sherlock Holmes. And you've earned the very best thing there is. You've earned me."

…

The love was mannered. And it was slow.

It wasn't about sex right away, it was about remembering why licking Sherlock under the arm makes him whisper _stop_ yet lift his arm higher. It was about smelling John's hair and then his neck and then back again, a fine little feedback loop indulged in for awhile.

It was about watching their fingers weave gently together as they both took hold of John. It was for closing eyes the better to hear soft moans, it was for a shifting when Sherlock knew John was near_—"Wait, wait"—_and for swallowing everything, all of it, then wishing there were more, more John, always more…

And then it was for staying there, a little sticky, a little wet, warm cheek to warm belly and maybe it was for wishing he really could delete things, simple as a mouse click, because then he'd eradicate the sure and certain knowledge that he had taken them to the edge of what they could—

"Oh will you never, never listen you foolish man?"

The words rumbled like low thunder, followed with the lightning skitter of laughter. "I keep telling you to shut up but you don't. Instead you think too loud, you think such silly things."

John shifted, tugged, turned, until they were again side-by-side and looking at each other. He licked his palm with cinematic slowness because Sherlock liked that, and when he was good and wet he slid his hand between Sherlock's legs.

"Nothing can end this. Nothing can end us. We're ever and always Sherlock, do you hear me?"

Quick strokes, slow strokes, over and over, another beautiful loop, and before long Sherlock was coming, and nodding _yes, yes, I hear._

"Say it love."

Still breathless, Sherlock pressed forehead to forehead and whispered, "Ever and always."

"Yes."

"Ever and always."

_"Yes."_

"Ever," said one man, and the other replied, "Always."

…

I'm the skull on the mantle (or sometimes the side-table, the work bench, or in the bed (don't ask)), so I've been there for all of it, every moment.

I've listened to them cry and laugh and moan. I've refereed arguments, and accidentally started a few. I've seen my boys naked, I've heard them sing. They are mine and I am theirs and so you can believe me when I tell you three times this one very important thing…

They live happily ever after.

They live happily ever after.

They live happily ever after.

This time, _yes._

THE END

___I know many of you didn't want to read this…and yet you read it anyway and shared your thoughts. And such beautiful thoughts they were, thank you for that. I know there's at least one issue unresolved (John and Phoebe). Originally I wrote a fluffy ending for this story but decided not to publish it because this is the ending I far prefer. I did eventually publish the "deleted scene" elsewhere, so if you want a bit of an epilogue (think of it as a DVD extra), it's at tinyurl dot com slash Forgiveness12, or just go to chapter 40 in "Bits, Pieces, and Drabbles." Meanwhile I'd be grateful if again you shared your thoughts. And remember: They live happily ever after!_


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